Use of direct-infusion electrospray mass spectrometry to guide empirical development of improved conditions for expression of secondary metabolites from actinomycetes.

A major barrier in the discovery of new secondary metabolites from microorganisms is the difficulty of distinguishing the minor fraction of productive cultures from the majority of unproductive cultures and growth conditions. In this study, a rapid, direct-infusion electrospray mass spectrometry (ES-MS) technique was used to identify chemical differences that occurred in the expression of secondary metabolites by 44 actinomycetes cultivated under six different fermentation conditions. Samples from actinomycete fermentations were prepared by solid-phase extraction, analyzed by ES-MS, and ranked according to a chemical productivity index based on the total number and relative intensity of ions present in each sample. The actinomycete cultures were tested for chemical productivity following treatments that included nutritional manipulations, autoregulator additions, and different agitation speeds and incubation temperatures. Evaluation of the ES-MS data from submerged and solid-state fermentations by paired t test analyses showed that solid-state growth significantly altered the chemical profiles of extracts from 75% of the actinomycetes evaluated. Parallel analysis of the same extracts by high-performance liquid chromatography-ES-MS-evaporative light scattering showed that the chemical differences detected by the ES-MS method were associated with growth condition-dependent changes in the yield of secondary metabolites. Our results indicate that the high-throughput ES-MS method is useful for identification of fermentation conditions that enhance expression of secondary metabolites from actinomycetes.