Constitutive overexpression of asm2 and asm39 increases AP-3 production in the actinomycete Actinosynnema pretiosum.

Constitutive overexpression of regulators in the ansamitocin biosynthetic cluster of Actinosynnema pretiosum was investigated as a strategy to increase the production of ansamitocin-P3 (AP-3), a clinically promising chemotherapeutic agent. Putative transcriptional regulators asm2, asm29, and asm34 as well as the putative regulatory protein asm39 were cloned into a single-site integrative vector and a multicopy replicative vector, pAP40 and pREP, respectively, and then transformed into A. pretiosum. Transformants overexpressing asm2 and asm39 in pREP showed an increase in ansamitocin production (1.3-fold over parental levels) in a bioassay screen. In shake-flask fermentations, the asm2 and asm39 overexpression transformants attained a maximum AP-3 titer of 33 and 52 mg/l, respectively, which were 1.6- and 2.5-fold higher than the blank vector control. The increase in AP-3 production for the asm2 overexpression transformant was unexpected, since prior reports suggested that Asm2 was a transcriptional repressor. The increase in production appeared to be dependent on the high expression levels achieved with the replicative vector, which may have disrupted the normal function of Asm2. Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) confirmed that asm2 and asm39 transcription levels were significantly higher in the transformants relative to the control, suggesting that the yield improvement was due to the transformed plasmids. This study demonstrates that deregulated overexpression of regulatory genes is a feasible strategy to increase AP-3 production in A. pretiosum.