Biosynthetic Studies on the Salinamides, Depsipeptides from a Marine Streptomyces

Abstract

In recent years, the field of natural products research has erupted with the emergence of combinatorial biosynthesis as a means to generate large numbers of molecules with great structural diversity (Hutchinson, 1997). These studies have provided diverse chemical structures which are required for high throughput bioassays in the discovery of new lead drug candidates. Much of the work in combinatorial biochemistry has centered on the Actinomycetes, particularly the common soil genus Streptomyces, as these microorganisms are a proven source of structurally diverse secondary metabolites possessing broad ranges of biological activities. As the frequency of novel bioactive compounds identified from terrestrial actinomycetes decreases with time, however, academic and industrial programs are increasingly screening actinomycetes from varied environments for their ability to generate novel metabolites. These studies have not only supplied new potential lead compounds, but have also revealed new biochemical pathways that can be tapped in a combinatorial fashion to produce new molecular structures.