Sunday, August 10, 2008
P85

Neurotrophic activity of a marine Streptomyces strain identified by gene mining

Xinqing Zhao1, Wenjie Yuan2, Bo Jiang2, Shuang Hao2, and Tianhong Yang2. (1) Pharmaceutical Biology Pharmaceutical Institute, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, Tübingen, 72076, Germany, (2) Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering, Dalian University of Technology, Linggong Road 2, Dalian, 116024, China

Marine actinomycetes have become attractive sources for the isolation of various natural products. However, the discovery of active compounds is often limited by the availability of assay methods, therefore chemical structures which are associated with the activities that are relatively easy to detect are repeatedly revealed. The development of molecular biology has offered a new direction to identify the biosynthesis potentiality of marine actinomycetes by analyzing the responsible genes related to the active compounds. Thus gene mining before the purification of the interested chemicals can provide information to direct the isolation of active compounds. In this study, marine Streptomyces strains were isolated from the sediment sample in Dalian sea area in China. Analysis of the gene fragments encoding type I polyketide synthase (PKSI) revealed that a sequence in strain DX07 showed high homology to a PKSI fragment in meridamycin biosynthesis, which provide the hint for the further investigation of its neurotrophic activity. Culture broth of DX07 was applied to rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells, and the MTT (3-4, 5-dimethylthiazolyl-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay demonstrated the stimulation of the PC12 cell growth by different dose, with the highest increase rate 300% of the control value. The active compound from this marine Streotomyces strain is under investigated.

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