Accumulation of the angucycline antibiotic rabelomycin after disruption of an oxygenase gene in the jadomycin B biosynthetic gene cluster of Streptomyces venezuelae.

DNA from a region downstream of and overlapping the polyketide synthase (PKS) gene cluster for jadomycin B biosynthesis in Streptomyces venezuelae was cloned and sequenced. Analysis of the nucleotide sequence located one complete ORF (ORF6), an incomplete one representing the 3' region of ORF4 in the PKS cluster, and a second incomplete one (ORF7). The deduced amino acid sequences for ORFs 6 and 7 resemble those of oxygenases. Since a plausible biosynthetic pathway for jadomycin B includes an angular polyketide intermediate that undergoes oxidative ring fission before condensation with an amino acid, we subcloned one of the presumptive oxygenase genes (ORF6) in a segregationally unstable shuttle vector (pHJL400) and disrupted it by inserting the gene for apramycin resistance. Transformation of S. venezuelae with the disruption vector and selection for apramycin resistance gave mutants blocked in jadomycin biosynthesis. Southern hybridization confirmed that gene replacement had occurred. Cultures of the mutants accumulated a metabolite identified by comparison with an authentic sample as rabelomycin, a non-nitrogenous polyketide-derived antibiotic originally isolated from Streptomyces olivaceus.