Publications

The potentialities of Streptomyces lividans 1326 as new live vaccine vehicle strategy have been evaluated. Immunization of mice with the Streptomyces mycelium induced high levels of specific antibodies against proteins released in the culture supernatant of the analyzed strain. Splenocytes from the Streptomyces-immunized animals were able to secrete high levels of IFN-γ (2103.9 pg/mL) and to proliferate in vitro on stimulation with proteins ...

Recent results with respect to the secretory production of bio-active Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins in Streptomyces have stimulated the further exploitation of this host as a bacterial cell factory. However, the rapid isolation of a recombinant protein by conventional procedures can be a restrictive step. A previous attempt to isolate recombinant antigens fused to the widely used 6His-tag was found to be relatively incompatible with ...

Recent results with respect to the secretory production of bio-active Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins in Streptomyces have stimulated the further exploitation of this host as a bacterial cell factory. However, the rapid isolation of a recombinant protein by conventional procedures can be a restrictive step. A previous attempt to isolate recombinant antigens fused to the widely used 6His-tag was found to be relatively incompatible with ...

Gram-positive Streptomyces bacteria are profuse secretors of polypeptides using complex, yet unknown mechanisms. Many of their secretory proteins are proteases that play important roles in the acquisition of amino acids from the environment. Other proteases regulate cellular proteostasis. To begin dissecting the possible role of proteases in Streptomyces secretion, we applied a multi-omics approach. We probed the role of the 190 proteases of ...

Filamentous organisms of the genus Streptomyces play an important role in industrial production processes, due to their extensive secondary metabolism variability, as well as their ability to secrete efficiently large amounts of (heterologous) proteins. While genetic engineering tools are available to rapidly build up large strain libraries, the subsequent strain screening and bioprocess development still constitutes a bottleneck. This is due to ...

Pentamycin is a polyene antibiotic, registered in Switzerland for the treatment of vaginal candidiasis, trichomoniasis, and mixed infections. Chemical instability has hindered its widespread application and development as a drug. Here, we report the identification of Streptomyces sp. S816, isolated from Philippine mangrove soil, as a pentamycin producer. Genome sequence analysis identified the putative pentamycin biosynthetic gene cluster, which ...

The choice of an expression system for the metagenomic DNA of interest is of vital importance for the detection of any particular gene or gene cluster. Most of the screens to date have used the gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli as a host for metagenomic gene libraries. However, the use of E. coli introduces a potential host bias since only 40 % of the enzymatic activities may be readily recovered by random cloning in E. coli. To recover ...

The choice of an expression system for the metagenomic DNA of interest is of vital importance for the detection of any particular gene or gene cluster. Most of the screens to date have used the gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli as a host for metagenomic gene libraries. However, the use of E. coli introduces a potential host bias since only 40 % of the enzymatic activities may be readily recovered by random cloning in E. coli. To recover ...

Bacteria are of tremendous importance in the pharma- and bio-industry as producers of a broad range of economically interesting metabolites and proteins. Gram-positive bacteria are valuable hosts for the production of heterologous proteins for obvious reasons. Contrary to Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-positive bacteria release their secreted proteins immediately into the spent culture broth as they are not hindered by an outer membrane. Secretory ...

Common scab disease on root and tuber plants is caused by Streptomyces scabies and related species which use the cellulose synthase inhibitor thaxtomin A as the main phytotoxin. Thaxtomin production is primarily triggered by the import of cello-oligosaccharides. Once inside the cell, the fate of the cello-oligosaccharides is dichotomized: (i) the fuelling of glycolysis with glucose for the saprophytic lifestyle through the action of ...