Abstract
Filamentous fungi are rich resources of secondary metabolites (SMs) with a variety of interesting biological activities. Recent advances in genome sequencing and techniques in genetic manipulation have enabled researchers to study the biosynthetic genes of these SMs. Aspergillus terreus is the well-known producer of lovastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug. This fungus also produces other SMs, including acetylaranotin, butyrolactones, and territram, with interesting bioactivities. This review will cover recent progress in genome mining of SMs identified in this fungus. The identification and characterization of the gene cluster for these SMs, as well as the proposed biosynthetic pathways, will be discussed in depth.
Highlights
Filamentous fungi, such as species found within the genus Aspergillus, are known to produce a wide variety of natural products displaying a broad spectrum of biological activities
Genome sequencing of members in the genus Aspergillus revealed that the number of secondary metabolite (SM) genes or gene clusters greatly exceeds the number of SMs identified so far
Striking examples of fungal SM clusters include those responsible for the biosynthesis of fumonisin (Proctor et al, 2003) and sterigmatocystin (Brown et al, 1996). The clustering of these SM genes is fortuitous for researchers since upon discovering one responsible gene within a cluster, other genes that are within close proximity of the identified genes may be involved in the biosynthesis of the same natural product
Summary
Filamentous fungi, such as species found within the genus Aspergillus, are known to produce a wide variety of natural products displaying a broad spectrum of biological activities. Genome sequencing of members in the genus Aspergillus revealed that the number of secondary metabolite (SM) genes or gene clusters greatly exceeds the number of SMs identified so far. This suggests that more types of SMs still remain to be discovered. One advance is the development of a fusion PCR technique that allows quick synthesis of linear PCR fragments that are used in the transformation of filamentous fungi (Yu et al, 2004; Szewczyk et al, 2006) Another advance concerns the establishment of an efficient gene targeting system in the fungus A. nidulans. The review consists of three major sections: genome mining of PKS-derived natural products, genome mining of NRPS-derived natural products, and genome mining of hybrid PKS-NRPS derived natural products by A. terreus
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