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Soil myxobacteria as a potential source of polyketide-peptide substances

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Abstract

Myxobacteria, a group of antimicrobial producing bacteria, have been successfully cultured and characterized from ten soil samples collected from different parts of Slovakia. A total of 79 myxobacteria belonging to four genera (Myxococcus, Corallococcus, Sorangium, and Polyangium) were isolated based on aspects of their life cycle. Twenty-five of them were purified, fermented, and screened for antimicrobial activities against 11 test microorganisms. Results indicated that crude extracts showed more significant activities against Gram-positive than against Gram-negative bacteria or fungi. Based on a higher degree and broader range of antimicrobial production, the two most potential extracts (K9-5, V3-1) were selected for HPLC fractionation against Micrococcus luteus and Staphylococcus aureus and LC/MS analysis of potential antibiotic metabolites. The analysis resulted in the identification of polyketide-peptide antibiotics, namely corallopyronin A and B (K9-5) and myxalamid B and C (V3-1), which were responsible for important Gram-positive activity in the observed strains. A sequence similarity search through BLAST revealed that these strains showed the highest sequence similarity to Corallococcus coralloides (K9-5, NCBI accession number KX256198) and Myxococcus xanthus (V3-1, NCBI accession number KX256197). Although screening of myxobacteria is laborious, due to difficulties in isolating cultures, this research represented the first report covering the isolation and cultivation of this challenging bacterial group from Slovakian soils as well as the screening of their antimicrobial activity, cultural identification, and secondary metabolite identification.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (Microbial Strain Collection Group), Braunschweig, Germany, for the scholarship and supporting of the results. This study was also supported by the Europien Community under project no. 26220220180: Building Research Centre Agrobiotech.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, Department of Microbiology, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 949 76, Nitra, Slovak Republic

    Ivana Charousová, Juraj Medo & Soňa Javoreková

  2. Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Microbial Strain Collection, Inhoffenstraβe 7, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Heinrich Steinmetz & Joachim Wink

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  1. Ivana Charousová
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  2. Heinrich Steinmetz
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  3. Juraj Medo
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  4. Soňa Javoreková
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  5. Joachim Wink
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Correspondence to Ivana Charousová.

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Charousová, I., Steinmetz, H., Medo, J. et al. Soil myxobacteria as a potential source of polyketide-peptide substances. Folia Microbiol 62, 305–315 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-017-0502-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-017-0502-2

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