Among eight components of avermectin, B1 fractions have the most effective antiparasitic activities and the lowest level of toxic side-effects and are used widely in veterinary and agricultural fields. In-traspecific protoplast fusion between two strains of Streptomyces avermitilis, one an avermectin high producer (strain 76-05) and the other a genetically engineered strain containing the mutations aveDˉ and olmAˉ (strain 73-12) was performed for enhancement and selective production of avermectin B in the absence of oligomycin. Two recombinant strains (F23 and F29) were isolated and characterized with regards to the parental merits. F23 and F29 produced only the four avermectin B components with high yield and produced no oligomycin. The avermectin production of F23 and F29 was about 84.20% and 103.45% of the parental strain 76-05, respectively, and increased about 2.66-fold and 3.50-fold, re-spectively, compared to that of parental strain 73-12. F23 and F29 were genetically stable prototrophic recombinants and F29 was quite tolerant of fermentation conditions compared to avermectin high producer parental strain 76-05. The ability to produce avermectin B with high yield without the produc-tion of other avermectin components and oligomycin will make F23 and F29 useful strains for aver-mectin production. Strain F29's tolerance of fermentation conditions will also make it suitable for in-dustrial applications.
In Streptomyces griseus, AdpA, the key transcriptional activator in the A-factor regulatory cascade, switches on the transcription of multiple genes required for secondary metabolism and morphological differentiation. Streptomyces avermitilis also contains an ortholog of adpA, which is named adpA-a. To clarify the in vivo function of adpA-a, an adpA-a-disrupted strain was constructed by double crossover recombination. No difference in avermectin production was found between the adpA-a-disruptant and the wild-type strain. However, this disruptant neither formed spores nor produced melanin and its phenotype was restored to the original wild-type by a single copy of the adpA-a gene integrated into the chromosome. This report shows that adpA-a is involved in regulation of morphological differentiation and melanin production in S. avermitilis.
Cultivation shift from 30℃ to 37℃ significantly enhanced validamycin (VAL) production. Analyzed by reverse-transcription PCR, the transcription of three val genes, valA, valK and valG, representing the three operons of the cluster was simultaneously increased at elevated temperature. Furthermore, the transcription of valP and valQ, a pair of two-component regulators in validamycin biosynthetic gene cluster, was also increased at 37℃. Inactivation of valP and valQ reduced validamycin production at 37℃ to the yield level of wild type strain at 30℃, and the val genes showed reduced expression in the mutant LL-8 at 37℃. These results revealed that the two-component regulator valP and valQ contribute to the elevated validamycin production.
