Rational engineering of Streptomyces albus J1074 for the overexpression of secondary metabolite gene clusters

BACKGROUND: Genome sequencing revealed that Streptomyces sp. can dedicate up to ~ 10% of their genomes for the biosynthesis of bioactive secondary metabolites. However, the majority of these biosynthetic gene clusters are only weakly expressed or not at all. Indeed, the biosynthesis of natural products is highly regulated through integrating multiple nutritional and environmental signals perceived by pleiotropic and pathway-specific transcriptional regulators. Although pathway-specific refactoring has been a proved, productive approach for the activation of individual gene clusters, the construction of a global super host strain by targeting pleiotropic-specific genes for the expression of multiple diverse gene clusters is an attractive approach. RESULTS: Streptomyces albus J1074 is a gifted heterologous host. To further improve its secondary metabolite expression capability, we rationally engineered the host by targeting genes affecting NADPH availability, precursor flux, cell growth and biosynthetic gene transcriptional activation. These studies led to the activation of the native paulomycin pathway in engineered S. albus strains and importantly the upregulated expression of the heterologous actinorhodin gene cluster. CONCLUSIONS: Rational engineering of Streptomyces albus J1074 yielded a series of mutants with improved capabilities for native and heterologous expression of secondary metabolite gene clusters. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12934-018-0874-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.