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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, May 2008, p. 3058-3068, Vol. 74, No. 10
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.02863-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Discovering the Hidden Secondary Metabolome of Myxococcus xanthus: a Study of Intraspecific Diversity{triangledown}

Daniel Krug,1 Gabriela Zurek,2 Ole Revermann,1 Michiel Vos,3,4 Gregory J. Velicer,4,5 and Rolf Müller1*

Institute for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken, Germany,1 Bruker Daltonik GmbH, Bremen, Germany,2 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom,3 Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tübingen, Germany,4 Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana5

Received 19 December 2007/ Accepted 20 March 2008

As a monophyletic group, the myxobacteria are known to produce a broad spectrum of secondary metabolites. However, the degree of metabolic diversity that can be found within a single species remains unexplored. The model species Myxococcus xanthus produces several metabolites also present in other myxobacterial species, but only one compound unique to M. xanthus has been found to date. Here, we compare the metabolite profiles of 98 M. xanthus strains that originate from 78 locations worldwide and include 20 centimeter-scale isolates from one location. This screen reveals a strikingly high level of intraspecific diversity in the M. xanthus secondary metabolome. The identification of 37 nonubiquitous candidate compounds greatly exceeds the small number of secondary metabolites previously known to derive from this species. These results suggest that M. xanthus may be a promising source of future natural products and that thorough intraspecific screens of other species could reveal many new compounds of interest.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Saarland University, P.O. Box 151150, 66041 Saarbrücken, Germany. Phone: 49 681 3025474. Fax: 49 681 3025473. E-mail: rom{at}mx.uni-saarland.de

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 31 March 2008.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, May 2008, p. 3058-3068, Vol. 74, No. 10
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.02863-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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