View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Chemistry & Biology Article An Iterative Type I Polyketide Synthase Initiates the Biosynthesis of the Antimycoplasma Agent Micacocidin Hirokazu Kage,1 Martin F. Kreutzer,1 Barbara Wackler,2 Dirk Hoffmeister,2 and Markus Nett1,* 1Junior Research Group ‘‘Secondary Metabolism of Predatory Bacteria’’, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans-Kno¨ ll-Institute, Beutenbergstrasse 11a, 07745 Jena, Germany 2Department of Pharmaceutical Biology at the Hans-Kno¨ ll-Institute, Friedrich Schiller Universita¨ t Jena, 07745 Jena, Germany *Correspondence:
[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chembiol.2013.04.010 SUMMARY under macrolide therapy have been described (Averbuch et al., 2011; Cardinale et al., 2011; Itagaki et al., 2013). Micacocidin is a thiazoline-containing natural pro- Micacocidin is a new antibiotic that exerts strong inhibitory duct from the bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum effects in the nanomolar range against several Mycoplasma that shows significant activity against Mycoplasma species, including M. pneumoniae (Kobayashi et al., 1998). pneumoniae. The presence of a pentylphenol moiety In vivo efficacy after oral administration was demonstrated in distinguishes micacocidin from the structurally chicken that had been infected with M. gallisepticum (Kobayashi related siderophore yersiniabactin, and this residue et al., 2000). The thiazoline-containing natural product micaco- cidin is structurally closely related to the siderophore yersinia- also contributes to the potent antimycoplasma bactin (Drechsel et al., 1995), and cellular uptake studies effects. The biosynthesis of the pentylphenol moiety, suggest that it might also be involved in iron acquisition of the as deduced from bioinformatic analysis and stable producing bacterium Ralstonia solanacearum (Kreutzer et al., isotope feeding experiments, involves an iterative 2011).