banner - 8th BCNP/ XXXIV RESEM
Back

Biosynthesis of Antibiotics from Gram-negative Bacteria

Type:

Invited Lecture (IL)

Category:

Chemical Ecology

Place:

Online

Date and time:

13:40 to 14:20 on 11/10/2021

The overwhelming majority of antibiotics in clinical use are natural products isolated from Actinobacteria or semi-synthetic derivatives. Pathogenic microorganisms are becoming increasingly resistant to these compounds, and there is thus an urgent need to discover novel antibiotics to address the emerging health threat this poses. In contrast to Actinobacteria, which are Gram-positive, the potential of Gram-negative bacteria to produce antibiotics has been relatively underexplored. In this lecture I will discuss recent efforts to investigate the production of antibiotics by the Burkholderia genus. These have led to the discovery of novel polyketides with potent activity against important antibiotic-resistant pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Acinetobacter baumannii. The gene clusters responsible for the biosynthesis of these metabolites have been identified and ongoing efforts to elucidate the biosynthetic pathways they encode will be described, highlighting the important role of non-elongating ketosynthase domains for chain transfer in polyketide synthases.

Discussions

Share your questions or ideas about this activity!