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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, April 2006, p. 2514-2519, Vol. 72, No. 4
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AEM.72.4.2514-2519.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Biotechnology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway,1 Department of Industrial Biotechnology, SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, SINTEF, N-7034 Trondheim, Norway2
Received 10 December 2005/ Accepted 23 January 2006
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P450 monooxygenases are widely distributed in nature and are mostly known to perform monooxygenation, although other catalytic functions, such as dehydrogenation, C
C and C
N bond cleavage, and dehydration, have also been reported for P450 enzymes (16). The "classical" reaction catalyzed by these enzymes is the transfer of one oxygen atom from O2 to a variety of substrates, using electrons supplied by NAD(P)H through ferredoxin (Fdx) and ferredoxin oxidoreductase (Fdr). Although in some bacteria the genes for P450 monooxygenases are usually clustered with the Fdx and Fdr genes, such a gene arrangement is rare in Streptomyces, suggesting that in streptomycete bacteria these enzymes are rather nonselective in their choice of electron transfer partners (19).
A considerable number of streptomycete P450 monooxygenases involved in antibiotic biosynthesis have been unraveled, including those performing monooxygenation of intermediates in the biosynthetic pathways for macrolides (5, 15, 17), anthracyclines (27), glycopeptides (6), coumarins (12) etc. Interestingly, some bacterial P450 monooxygenases exhibit substantial flexibility regarding the structural features of their substrates (13, 28), suggesting the possibility for using these enzymes in combinatorial biosynthesis. Recently, characterizations of P450 monooxygenase genes involved in the biosynthesis of two polyene macrolide antibiotics, pimaricin and amphotericin B, have been published (10, 11, 17). Deletion of pimD in the pimaricin producer Streptomyces natalensis resulted in the accumulation of 4,5-deepoxy pimaricin, suggesting a role for PimD as a 4,5-epoxydase. The latter was recently confirmed via an enzymatic assay with heterologously expressed protein (18). Inactivation of the amphL gene in the amphotericin producer S. nodosus led to the production of 8-deoxy amphotericins A and B, implying that AmphL is a C-8 hydroxylase in amphotericin biosynthesis. Another P450 enzyme from the amphotericin biosynthetic pathway was shown to be responsible for the oxidation of the methyl group, resulting in the appearance of the exocyclic carboxyl moiety. Most interestingly, the amphotericin B analogue lacking the latter group was purified and shown to have considerably less hemolytic activity than amphotericin B (11). A similar result was obtained upon inactivation of RimG, the P450 monooxygenase responsible for oxidation of the exocyclic methyl group on the rimocidin/C-108 precursor in S. diastaticus (22). Considering the importance of polyene macrolides as antifungal agents used in human therapy, a better understanding of the reactions catalyzed by these P450 monooxygenases and their substrate range might help in combinatorial biosynthesis of novel polyene macrolides aimed at the development of new antibiotics.
Streptomyces noursei ATCC 11455 produces a complex mixture of polyene macrolides with antifungal activity which are generally referred to as nystatins (9). The major component of the nystatin complex, nystatin A1, is composed of a 38-membered macrolactone ring synthesized by six large polyketide synthase (PKS) proteins (7). The macrolactone ring of nystatin A1 is further modified in the course of biosynthesis via the addition of a mycosamine deoxysugar moiety, oxidation of the methyl group at C-16, and hydroxylation at C-10 (14). The last two modifications in the biosynthesis of nystatin were suggested to be performed by P450 monooxygenase enzymes encoded by the genes nysL and nysN in the nystatin biosynthetic gene cluster, although experimental evidence for the enzymatic activities of these monooxygenases was not available. In the present work, we have proven the role of NysL as a C-10 hydroxylase (Fig. 1A) involved in nystatin biosynthesis via gene inactivation in S. noursei, heterologous expression of NysL, and in vitro enzyme assays for the recombinant protein.
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FIG. 1. (A) Chemical structure of nystatin A1. The site of NysL-catalyzed hydroxylation is indicated by an arrow. (B) Phylogenetic tree of actinomycete P450 monooxygenases known to be responsible for post-PKS modification of macrolide antibiotic precursors in the biosynthetic pathways of amphotericin (AmphL and AmphN), chalcomycin (ChmHI), candicidin (CanC), erythromycin (EryF), FK520 (FkbD), FR-008 (FscP), nystatin (NysL and NysN), oleandomycin (OleP), picromycin (PicK), pimaricin (PimD and PimG), rapamycin (RapH and RapJ), rimocidin (RimG), and tylosin (TylHI).
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TABLE 1. Bacterial strains, plasmids, and phage used for this study
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Construction of nysL deletion mutant.
A 2,148-kb DNA fragment designated Nldel12, encompassing part of nysL and the downstream region, was amplified from the pL95X template using primers NLD1 (5'-GACGAATTCAACTGGTGGCGGAGCTGA-3') and NLD2 (5'-GACCTGCAGCTGCTTGAGTTCGGTG-3'). A 2,089-kb DNA fragment designated NLdel34, containing the upstream region and some of the coding region of nysL, was amplified from the plasmid pL95X template using primers NLD3 (5'-GACCTGCAGTCGAGGAACTGCGGGTGCT-3') and NLD4 (5'-GCAAAGCTTTGCGGGCGATGGCGTTCAC-3'). The NLdel12 and NLdel34 PCR products were digested with the EcoRI/PstI and PstI/HindIII endonucleases, respectively, and ligated together with the 3.0-kb EcoRI/HindIII fragment from pSOK201, yielding the nysL replacement vector pNLD1. Using this vector, we obtained the nysL in-frame deletion mutant NLD101 by double homologous recombination in the previously constructed non-nystatin-producing mutant NDA59, which can be complemented with the nysA gene to restore nystatin production (8).
Purification of 10-deoxynystatin and test for antifungal activity.
The purification of 10-deoxynystatin was performed according to a previously described procedure (25). The antifungal activities of nystatin and 10-deoxynystatin were determined using Candida albicans as a test organism according to a method described previously (9).
Heterologous expression of NysL.
The nysL gene was amplified for insertion into the N-terminal His tag expression vector pQE-2 (QIAGEN) by PCR. The forward primer NLQE21 (5'-GGACCATATGAGCACACCGACCGCAC-3') introduced a unique NdeI site at the 5' end of the gene, while the reverse primer NLQE22 (5'-CCAGAAGCTTCATCACGTCACCAGGTGAC-3') carried a HindIII site downstream from translational stop codons. The amplified DNA fragment was digested with NdeI and HindIII and cloned into the same sites of pQE2 to generate pQNL2, the vector for heterologous expression of the N-terminal six-His-NysL protein. The cloned fragment was sequenced in order to check its integrity after PCR amplification. Expression and purification of six-His-NysL were performed essentially as described elsewhere (20), but after induction of the culture with 1 mM IPTG (isopropyl-ß-D-thiogalactopyranoside) and incubation for 4 h at 30°C.
NysL enzyme assay and studies of enzyme kinetics.
NysL activity was measured in a mixture containing 0.3 to 105 µM 10-deoxynystatin, 16 to 48 nM six-His-NysL, 100 µg/ml spinach ferredoxin, 0.2 U/ml spinach ferredoxin-NADP+ reductase, 1.4 mM NADPH, 10 mM glucose-6-phosphate, and 8 U/ml glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase in 50 mM Tris-HCl, pH 8.0 (16). The reaction mixture was incubated at 30°C in the temperature-controlled autoinjector of the Agilent 1100 LC-MS equipment used in the assay. The reaction was started by adding the enzymes to the preheated substrate mixture. Every fifth minute after the reaction was started, an aliquot from the reaction mixture was injected into the LC-MS instrument for determination of the nystatin and 10-deoxynystatin concentrations. The LC-MS analyses were performed on an Agilent 1100 high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system connected to a diode array detector and an Agilent single-quadrupole mass spectrometer using electrospray ionization in negative mode. A Zorbax Bonus-RP (2.1 x 50 mm) chromatographic column operated at 0.3 ml/min was used for analyte separation. The mobile phase consisted of 10 mM ammonium acetate, pH 4.0, and 30% acetonitrile.
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nysL mutant designated NLD101. The scheme for NDL101 mutant construction is presented in Fig. 2. The deletion within the nysL gene in NLD101 was confirmed by Southern blot analysis (data not shown).
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FIG. 2. Schematic representation of nysL mutant construction in S. noursei.
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nysL mutant, the integrative plasmid pNA0 (8) carrying the nysA gene was introduced into the NLD101 mutant. The resulting recombinant strain, NLD101(pNA0), was incubated for 5 days in defined production medium, and culture extracts were analyzed for the presence of nystatin-related polyene macrolides by using HPLC and LC-MS. The latter analysis (Fig. 3) confirmed the production of a 910-Da nystatin analogue by the NLD101(pNA0) strain at a volumetric yield of 1.06 ± 0.04 g/liter, which was somewhat lower than the nystatin yield in the wild-type strain (1.51 ± 0.03 g/liter). The accurate atomic mass of this analogue, its retention time during HPLC, and the UV spectrum exactly matched those for 10-deoxynystatin, which was identified during studies of the NysH/NysG transporter system in S. noursei (25). The 10-deoxynystatin produced was then purified from the NLD101 culture extract for further testing.
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FIG. 3. Diode array detector-HPLC profiles of culture extracts from S. noursei ATCC 11455 and the NLD101 mutant.
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Recombinant NysL protein efficiently converts 10-deoxynystatin to nystatin.
To allow for enzymatic studies of the NysL monooxygenase, we heterologously expressed this protein in Escherichia coli with an N-terminal six-His affinity tag and purified the recombinant protein. The PCR-amplified product containing the coding region of the nysL gene was cloned into the pQE2 expression vector immediately after the six-His tag sequence (pQNL2) (see Materials and Methods). Induction of the T5 promoter in the culture of E. coli DH5
carrying the pQNL2 expression plasmid resulted in high-level production of the partially soluble 43-kDa protein, whose molecular mass corresponded to that of NysL. The recombinant six-His-NysL protein was purified on a Ni-nitrilotriacetic acid agarose column, and its purity was assessed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (Fig. 4A).
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FIG. 4. (A) Heterologous expression of NysL in Escherichia coli as a His-tagged protein. Lanes: 1, crude cell extract; 2, flowthrough; 3, wash; 4, eluted His-NysL; 5, molecular weight marker. (B) Enzymatic assay monitored by HPLC and LC-MS showing conversion of 10-deoxynystatin to nystatin by His-NysL and the redox partners.
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Kinetic studies of recombinant NysL protein.
The kinetics of the recombinant NysL-catalyzed reaction was studied next. With a substrate concentration of 45 µM, the initial rate of hydroxylation was found to increase linearly with the enzyme concentration in the range of 16 to 45 nM six-His-NysL. At 30°C, the phase of the reaction where the enzyme concentration and the rate of hydroxylation correlated linearly lasted ca. 15 to 20 min. An enzyme concentration of 16.1 nM and a reaction time of 5 min were chosen for kinetic studies. Enzymatic assays were performed with increasing concentrations of 10-deoxynystatin and nystatin. Data from the assays, monitored by LC-MS, did not reveal inhibition of the recombinant NysL enzyme by either the substrate or the product. At substrate concentrations in the range of 0.3 to 105 µM, the data could be fitted well to the Michaelis-Menten equation (Fig. 5). Further increases in the substrate concentration resulted in precipitation of 10-deoxynystatin and were therefore not considered. The Km and Vmax values were determined (based on three independent assays) to be 24 ± 3 µM and 1.5 ± 0.2 µM/min, respectively. Provided that all of the enzyme is active, this corresponds to a kcat value of 1.6 ± 0.2 s1 and a kcat/Km value of 0.07 ± 0.01 µM1 s1.
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FIG. 5. Kinetics of six-His-NysL-catalyzed reaction. The presented data are based on three independent enzyme assays.
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In the present study, we have characterized the P450 monooxygenase NysL encoded by the nystatin biosynthetic gene cluster in S. noursei ATCC 11455. An alignment of the NysL amino acid sequence with those for P450 enzymes known to be involved in antibiotic biosynthesis, followed by phylogenetic analysis, clearly revealed that NysL is related to PimD and AmphL, an epoxidase and a hydroxylase in the pimaricin and amphotericin biosynthetic pathways, respectively. PimD, AmphL, and NysL represent a separate clade on the phylogenetic tree which is distant from that containing P450 monooxygenases from the polyene macrolide biosynthetic pathways known or assumed to catalyze the oxidation of an exocyclic methyl group (1, 11, 22).
Inactivation of the nysL gene in S. noursei yielded a recombinant strain producing 10-deoxynystatin as a major polyene macrolide (Fig. 3). This metabolite is present in trace amounts in wild-type strain extracts and was assumed to be accumulated due to the failure of NysL to hydroxylate this precursor at C-10 (9). Sletta et al. have demonstrated that the accumulation of 10-deoxynystatin by S. noursei also occurs upon inactivation of the presumed nystatin efflux system NysH-NysG (25). This observation suggested a link between the process of NysL-catalyzed hydroxylation of 10-deoxynystatin and active transport of the nystatin, and we hypothesized that the NysH-NysG transporter provides conditions favorable for C-10 hydroxylation by NysL.
Based on the current model for the polyene macrolide mode of action, which involves the formation of ion-permeable channels in fungal membranes (2), it could be assumed that removal of the C-10 hydroxyl group from the nystatin polyol region will decrease channel permeability. Indeed, according to the model, hydroxyl groups in the polyol region of the molecule are located on the inner part of the channel, creating a hydrophilic environment allowing ions and other small molecules to leak out of the cell. However, we have demonstrated that the antifungal activity of 10-deoxynystatin is equal to that of nystatin, at least for C. albicans. This observation was in contrast to the data for 4,5-deepoxypimaricin and 8-deoxyamphotericin B, which were obtained upon inactivation of the genes encoding P450 monooxygenases performing epoxidation and hydroxylation of pimaricin and amphotericin precursors, respectively, in polyol regions of the molecules. In both cases, a notable decrease in antifungal activity was observed (10, 17). One possible explanation for this phenomenon might be that the conformation of the polyol region of the nystatin molecule is different from those of pimaricin and amphotericin. This difference might result in limited participation of the nystatin C-10 hydroxyl group in channel formation and, thus, its low significance for antifungal activity.
Heterologous expression and purification of His-tagged NysL allowed for preliminary characterization of this enzyme in vitro. Recombinant NysL was shown to efficiently convert 10-deoxynystatin to nystatin A1, and no inhibition was observed by either the substrate or the product. This is in contrast with the apparent substrate inhibition shown for the epoxidase PimD, the close homologue of NysL (18). The Km and kcat values determined for the recombinant NysL protein are similar to those reported for other macrolide-specific P450 monooxygenases and presented by Mendes et al. (18). According to the kcat/Km criterion, His-tagged NysL has a somewhat higher substrate specificity toward 10-deoxynystatin than recombinant PimD toward its substrate, 4,5-deepoxypimaricin. It could be interesting to test whether recombinant NysL can use other polyene macrolides as substrates, since this could open possibilities for combinatorial biosynthesis. The latter can be achieved through expression of the nysL gene in polyene macrolide-producing hosts in order to obtain novel analogues with different post-PKS hydroxylation patterns. For example, the expression of NysL in the amphotericin producer devoid of AmphL activity (10) could yield an amphotericin analogue hydroxylated at C-10 instead of C-8 (Fig. 1A). Alternatively, NysL can be engineered via either site-specific mutagenesis (4) or directed evolution (3) in order to change its specificity towards 10-deoxynystatin. This approach might provide novel nystatin analogues hydroxylated at alternative macrolactone ring positions in hope of obtaining antifungal compounds with improved pharmacologic properties.
This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway.
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