Mechanism of the incidental production of a melanin-like pigment during 6-demethylchlortetracycline production in Streptomyces aureofaciens.

The secondary metabolite 6-demethylchlortetracycline (6-DCT), which is produced by Streptomyces aureofaciens, is used as a precursor of semisynthetic tetracyclines. Strains that produce 6-DCT also produce a melanin-like pigment (MP). The correlation between MP production and 6-DCT production was investigated by using S. aureofaciens NRRL 3203. Production of both MP and 6-DCT was repressed by phosphate or ammonium ions, suggesting that syntheses of these compounds are controlled by the same regulators. Ten chlortetracycline-producing recombinants were derived from 6-DCT-producing mutant NRRL 3203 by gene replacement. All of the recombinants produced chlortetracycline but not MP, indicating that MP production is the results of a defect in the 6-methylation step and suggesting that the polyketide nonaketideamide is a common intermediate leading to MP as well as 6-DCT. To further examine the possibility that MP might be synthesized via the 6-DCT-biosynthetic pathway, mutants defective in 6-DCT biosynthesis were derived from a 6-DCT producer. Some of these mutants were able to produce MP, while others, including mutants with mutations in the gene encoding anhydrotetracycline oxygenase, an enzyme catalyzing the penultimate step in the pathway, produced neither 6-DCT nor MP. Production of 6-DCT and production of MP were restored simultaneously by integrative transformation with the corresponding 6-DCT-biosynthetic genes, indicating that some of 6-DCT-biosynthetic enzymes are indispensable for MP production. These findings suggest that a defect in the 6-methylation step results in redirection of carbon flux from a certain intermediate in the 6-DCT-biosynthetic pathway to a shunt pathway and results in MP production.