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Anaerobic bacteria as producers of antibiotics

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Abstract

Anaerobic bacteria are the oldest terrestrial creatures. They occur ubiquitously in soil and in the intestine of higher organisms and play a major role in human health, ecology, and industry. However, until lately no antibiotic or any other secondary metabolite has been known from anaerobes. Mining the genome sequences of Clostridium spp. has revealed a high prevalence of putative biosynthesis genes (PKS and NRPS), and only recently the first antibiotic from the anaerobic world, closthioamide, has been isolated from the cellulose degrading bacterium Clostridium cellulolyticum. The successful genetic induction of antibiotic biosynthesis in an anaerobe encourages further investigations of obligate anaerobes to tap their hidden biosynthetic potential.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the “Pakt für Forschung und Innovation” of the Free State of Thuringia and the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (BMBF, Germany), and the International Leibniz Research School for Biomolecular and Microbial Interactions (ILRS), as part of the excellence graduate school Jena School for Microbial Communication (JSMC). We thank Dr. Sacha Pidot for critically reading the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomolecular Chemistry, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, Hans Knöll Institute (HKI), Beutenbergstr. 11a, 07745, Jena, Germany

    Swantje Behnken & Christian Hertweck

  2. Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany

    Christian Hertweck

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  1. Swantje Behnken
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  2. Christian Hertweck
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Correspondence to Christian Hertweck.

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Behnken, S., Hertweck, C. Anaerobic bacteria as producers of antibiotics. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 96, 61–67 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-012-4285-8

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