Gene expression enabling synthetic diversification of natural products: chemogenetic generation of pacidamycin analogs.

Introduction of prnA, the halogenase gene from pyrrolnitrin biosynthesis, into Streptomyces coeruleorubidus resulted in efficient in situ chlorination of the uridyl peptide antibotic pacidamycin. The installed chlorine provided a selectably functionalizable handle enabling synthetic modification of the natural product using mild cross-coupling conditions in crude aqueous extracts of the culture broth.