GNPS - Salinity stress-induced metabolic reprogramming in streptomycetes

Streptomycetes are major producers of a wide variety of secondary metabolites that serve as bioactive compounds. Many secondary metabolites are produced in response to environmental signals such as biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study, we identified salinity stress as one of the stimuli activating secondary metabolism in the model Streptomyces species, Streptomyces coelicolor. Comparative metabolomics revealed overproduction of several known secondary metabolites, most notably undecylprodigiosin and coelimycin P1, in addition to their biosynthetic intermediates and derivatives as well as many unknown metabolites. Transcriptomic analysis revealed activation of diverse biological processes including potassium uptake, compatible solute production and phosphate limitation stress response through conserved and species-specific mechanisms, presumably to overcome the salinity stress. This stress response leads to activation of a variety of regulatory and metabolic pathways required for production of secondary metabolites including activation of conserved metabolic pathways for energy and substrate supply and species-specific secondary metabolites biosynthetic gene clusters. Furthermore, several promoter sequences contributing to upregulation of secondary metabolism induced by salinity stress were identified. Overall, our data show how S. coelicolor copes with the salinity stress and tailors the cellular metabolism toward secondary metabolism in a conserved and species-specific manner.

The work (proposal:https://doi.org/10.46936/10.25585/60008131) conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.