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afsQ1-Q2-sigQ is a pleiotropic but conditionally required signal transduction system for both secondary metabolism and morphological development in Streptomyces coelicolor

  • Applied Microbial and Cell Physiology
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Abstract

Two-component system AfsQ1-Q2 of Streptomyces coelicolor was identified previously for its ability to stimulate actinorhodin (ACT) and undecylprodigiosin (RED) production in Streptomyces lividans. However, disruption of either afsQ1 or afsQ2 in S. coelicolor led to no detectable changes in secondary metabolite formation or morphogenesis. In this study, we reported that, when cultivated on defined minimal medium (MM) with glutamate as the sole nitrogen source, the afsQ mutant exhibited significantly decreased ACT, RED, and calcium-dependent antibiotic (CDA) production and rapid growth of aerial mycelium. In addition, we also found that deletion of sigQ, which is located upstream of afsQ1-Q2 and encodes a putative sigma factor, led to the precocious hyperproduction of these antibiotics and delayed formation of sporulating aerial mycelium in the same glutamate-based defined MM. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction and egfp fusion analyses showed that the expression of sigQ was under control by afsQ. In addition, deletion of both afsQ-sigQ resulted in the phenotype identical to that of afsQ mutant. The results suggested that afsQ1-Q2 and sigQ worked together in the regulation of both antibiotic biosynthesis and morphological development, and sigQ might be responsible for antagonizing the function of AfsQ1-Q2 in S. coelicolor, however, in a medium-dependent manner. Moreover, the study showed that the medium-dependent regulation of antibiotic biosynthesis by AfsQ1-Q2-SigQ was through pathway-specific activator genes actII-ORF4, redD, and cdaR. The study provides new insights on regulation of antibiotic biosynthesis and morphological development in S. coelicolor.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30770023, 30700022), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KSCX2-YW-G-007), and the National Basic Research Program of China (2007CB707803).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Rd, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Dan Shu, Lei Chen, Weihua Wang, Zhenyu Yu, Cong Ren, Sheng Yang, Yinhua Lu & Weihong Jiang

  2. Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100080, People’s Republic of China

    Dan Shu, Lei Chen, Weihua Wang, Zhenyu Yu & Cong Ren

  3. Center for Ecogenomics, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-6501, USA

    Weiwen Zhang

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  1. Dan Shu
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Correspondence to Yinhua Lu or Weihong Jiang.

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Supplementary Table 1

Primers used in the construction of deletion mutants and gene overexpression in this study (DOC 40 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

List of primers used in RT-PCR analysis (DOC 44 kb)

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Shu, D., Chen, L., Wang, W. et al. afsQ1-Q2-sigQ is a pleiotropic but conditionally required signal transduction system for both secondary metabolism and morphological development in Streptomyces coelicolor . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 81, 1149–1160 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1738-1

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