Expanding the Natural Products Heterologous Expression Repertoire in the Model Cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. Strain PCC 7120: Production of Pendolmycin and Teleocidin B-4

Synthetic biology strategies for cyanobacterial systems to heterologously produce cyanobacterial natural products

Covering: 2014 to 2024Cyanobacteria are prolific producers of bioactive natural products, including promising drug leads for FDA-approved cancer therapeutics. Advances in genome sequencing and computational tools have revealed a wealth of cyanobacterial biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). However, progress in genome-driven discovery has been hindered by challenges in manipulating native hosts and the limited availability of efficient heterologous expression platforms. This highlight focuses on recent synthetic biology innovations on cyanobacterial systems that address these obstacles, facilitating the production of diverse cyanobacterial natural product families. We discuss key features of widely used cyanobacterial chassis, such as Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, Synechococcus elongatus UTEX 2973, Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, and emerging hosts. Advances in BGC cloning, combinatorial biosynthesis, transcriptional and translational regulation, and host engineering are also highlighted. Together, these synthetic biology developments provide a powerful framework for expanding cyanobacterial natural product discovery and production.

First Report of Accumulation of Lyngbyatoxin-A in Edible Shellfish in Aotearoa New Zealand from Marine Benthic Cyanobacteria

This study reports the first documented accumulation of lyngbyatoxin-a (LTA), a cyanotoxin produced by marine benthic cyanobacteria, in edible shellfish in Aotearoa New Zealand. The study investigates two bloom events in 2022 and 2023 on Waiheke Island, where hundreds of tonnes of marine benthic cyanobacterial mats (mBCMs) washed ashore each summer. Genetic analysis identified the cyanobacterium responsible for the blooms as Okeania sp., a genus typically found in tropical marine ecosystems. Analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry indicated that the cyanobacteria produced a potent dermatoxin, lyngbyatoxin-a (LTA), and that LTA had accumulated in marine snails, rock oysters and cockles collected near the mats. Snails contained the highest levels of LTA (up to 10,500 µg kg-1). The study also demonstrated that the LTA concentration was stable in composted mats for several months. The presence of LTA in edible species and its stability over time raise concerns about the potential health risks to humans consuming LTA-contaminated seafood. This underlines the need for further studies assessing the risks of human exposure to LTA through seafood consumption, particularly as climate change and eutrophication are expected to increase the frequency of mBCM blooms. The study highlights the need to develop public health risk management strategies for mBCMs.

Structure, biosynthesis and activity of indolactam alkaloids

Indolactam alkaloids are a family of aromatic toxins produced by various actinobacteria and the cyanobacterium, Moorena producens. The best characterized examples include the teleocidins, lyngbyatoxins, olivoretins, blastmycetins, and pendolmycins, which share a nine-membered lactam core, comprised from l-tryptophanol and l-valine. Contact with indolactam alkaloids has been linked to severe dermatitis (swimmers itch), while accidental ingestion may lead to illness and fatalities. Indolactam alkaloids are also potent tumor promotors, due to their activation of protein kinase C isozymes. This chapter reviews the current literature on indolactam alkaloids, from their discovery in the early 1960s up to 2024. Topics covered include the isolation, structural elucidation, biosynthesis, bioactivity, and total synthesis of the indolactam alkaloid core.

Harnessing the potential: advances in cyanobacterial natural product research and biotechnology

Covering: 2000 to 2023Cyanobacteria produce a variety of bioactive natural products that can pose a threat to humans and animals as environmental toxins, but also have potential for or inspire pharmaceutical use. As oxygenic phototrophs, cyanobacteria furthermore hold great promise for sustainable biotechnology. Yet, the necessary tools for exploiting their biotechnological potential have so far been established only for a few model strains of cyanobacteria, while large untapped biosynthetic resources are hidden in slow-growing cyanobacterial genera that are difficult to access by genetic techniques. In recent years, several approaches have been developed to circumvent the bottlenecks in cyanobacterial natural product research. Here, we summarize current progress that has been made in unlocking or characterizing cryptic metabolic pathways using integrated omics techniques, orphan gene cluster activation, use of genetic approaches in original producers, heterologous expression and chemo-enzymatic techniques. We are mainly highlighting genomic mining concepts and strategies towards high-titer production of cyanobacterial natural products from the last 10 years and discuss the need for further research developments in this field.

Recent Advances in Cyanotoxin Synthesis and Applications: A Comprehensive Review

Over the past few decades, nearly 300 known cyanotoxins and more than 2000 cyanobacterial secondary metabolites have been reported from the environment. Traditional studies have focused on the toxic cyanotoxins produced by harmful cyanobacteria, which pose a risk to both human beings and wildlife, causing acute and chronic poisoning, resulting in diarrhea, nerve paralysis, and proliferation of cancer cells. Actually, the biotechnological potential of cyanotoxins is underestimated, as increasing studies have demonstrated their roles as valuable products, including allelopathic agents, insecticides and biomedicines. To promote a comprehensive understanding of cyanotoxins, a critical review is in demand. This review aims to discuss the classifications; biosynthetic pathways, especially heterogenous production; and potential applications of cyanotoxins. In detail, we first discuss the representative cyanotoxins and their toxic effects, followed by an exploration of three representative biosynthetic pathways (non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, polyketide synthetases, and their combinations). In particular, advances toward the heterologous biosynthesis of cyanotoxins in vitro and in vivo are summarized and compared. Finally, we indicate the potential applications and solutions to bottlenecks for cyanotoxins. We believe that this review will promote a comprehensive understanding, synthetic biology studies, and potential applications of cyanotoxins in the future.

Insight to biotechnological utility of phycochemicals from cyanobacterium Anabaena sp.: An overview

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) are well-known for the ability to excrete extra-cellular products, as a variety of cyanochemicals (phycocompounds) of curio with several extensive therapeutic applications. Among these phycocompound, the cyanotoxins from certain water-bloom forming taxa are toxic to biota, including crocodiles. Failure of current non-renewable source compounds in producing sustainable and non-toxic therapeutics led the urgency of discovering products from natural sources. Particularly, compounds of the filamentous N2-fixing Anabaena sp. have effective antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant, and anticancer properties. Today, such newer compounds are the potential targets for the possible novel chemical scaffolds, suitable for mainstream-drug development cascades. Bioactive compounds of Anabaena sp. such as, anatoxins, hassallidins and phycobiliproteins have proven their inherent antibacterial, antifungal, and antineoplastic activities, respectively. Herein, the available details of the biomass production and the inherent phyco-constituents namely, alkaloids, lipids, phenols, peptides, proteins, polysaccharides, terpenoids and cyanotoxins are considered, along with geographical distributions and morphological characteristics of the cyanobacterium. The acquisitions of cyanochemicals in recent years have newly addressed several pharmaceutical aliments, and the understanding of the associated molecular interactions of phycochemicals have been considered, for plausible use in drug developments in future.

Identification, Heterologous Expression, and Characterization of the Tolypodiol Biosynthetic Gene Cluster through an Integrated Approach

Cyanobacteria are tremendous producers of biologically active natural products, including the potent anti-inflammatory compound tolypodiol. However, linking biosynthetic gene clusters with compound production in cyanobacteria has lagged behind that in other bacterial genera. Tolypodiol is a meroterpenoid originally isolated from the cyanobacterium HT-58-2. Here we describe the identification of the tolypodiol biosynthetic gene cluster through heterologous expression in Anabaena and in vitro protein assays of a methyltransferase found in the tolypodiol biosynthetic gene cluster. We have also identified similar biosynthetic gene clusters in cyanobacterial and actinobacterial genomes, suggesting that meroterpenoids with structural similarity to the tolypodiols may be synthesized by other microbes. We also report the identification of two new analogs of tolypodiol that we have identified in both the original and heterologous producer. This work further illustrates the usefulness of Anabaena as a heterologous expression host for cyanobacterial compounds and how integrated approaches can help to link natural product compounds with their producing biosynthetic gene clusters.

Recent Advances in the Heterologous Expression of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters for Marine Natural Products

Marine natural products (MNPs) are an important source of biologically active metabolites, particularly for therapeutic agent development after terrestrial plants and nonmarine microorganisms. Sequencing technologies have revealed that the number of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) in marine microorganisms and the marine environment is much higher than expected. Unfortunately, the majority of them are silent or only weakly expressed under traditional laboratory culture conditions. Furthermore, the large proportion of marine microorganisms are either uncultivable or cannot be genetically manipulated. Efficient heterologous expression systems can activate cryptic BGCs and increase target compound yield, allowing researchers to explore more unknown MNPs. When developing heterologous expression of MNPs, it is critical to consider heterologous host selection as well as genetic manipulations for BGCs. In this review, we summarize current progress on the heterologous expression of MNPs as a reference for future research.

Expression of Cyanobacterial Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Escherichia coli

Cyanobacteria represent an attractive source of natural bioactive compounds, ranging from sunscreens to cancer treatments. While many biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that encode cyanobacterial natural products are known, the slow growth and lack of genetic tools in the native producers hampers their modification, characterization, and large-scale production. By engineering heterologous hosts for the expression of cyanobacterial BGCs, sufficient material can be produced for research or industry. Although several hosts have been evaluated for the expression of cyanobacterial natural products, this work details the process of expressing BGCs in Escherichia coli via promoter exchange.

Beyond Soil-Dwelling Actinobacteria: Fantastic Antibiotics and Where to Find Them

Bacterial secondary metabolites represent an invaluable source of bioactive molecules for the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Although screening campaigns for the discovery of new compounds have traditionally been strongly biased towards the study of soil-dwelling Actinobacteria, the current antibiotic resistance and discovery crisis has brought a considerable amount of attention to the study of previously neglected bacterial sources of secondary metabolites. The development and application of new screening, sequencing, genetic manipulation, cultivation and bioinformatic techniques have revealed several other groups of bacteria as producers of striking chemical novelty. Biosynthetic machineries evolved from independent taxonomic origins and under completely different ecological requirements and selective pressures are responsible for these structural innovations. In this review, we summarize the most important discoveries related to secondary metabolites from alternative bacterial sources, trying to provide the reader with a broad perspective on how technical novelties have facilitated the access to the bacterial metabolic dark matter.

Divergent synthesis of 4-amino indoles with free amine groups via tandem reaction of 2-alkynylanilines

A dearomatization method for divergent synthesis of 4-amino indoles having N1 or C4 free amine groups from 2-alkynylanilines was reported.

Tailoring Enzyme Stringency Masks the Multispecificity of a Lyngbyatoxin (Indolactam Alkaloid) Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetase

Indolactam alkaloids are activators of protein kinase C (PKC) and are of pharmacological interest for the treatment of pathologies involving PKC dysregulation. The marine cyanobacterial nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) pathway for lyngbyatoxin biosynthesis, which we previously expressed in E. coli, was studied for its amenability towards the biosynthesis of indolactam variants. Modification of culture conditions for our E. coli heterologous expression host and analysis of pathway products suggested the native lyngbyatoxin pathway NRPS does possess a degree of relaxed specificity. Site-directed mutagenesis of two positions within the adenylation domain (A-domain) substrate-binding pocket was performed, resulting in an alteration of substrate preference between valine, isoleucine, and leucine. We observed relative congruence of in vitro substrate activation by the LtxA NRPS to in vivo product formation. While there was a preference for isoleucine over leucine, the substitution of alternative tailoring domains may unveil the true in vivo effects of the mutations introduced herein.

Evaluation of inducible promoter-riboswitch constructs for heterologous protein expression in the cyanobacterial species Anabaena sp. PCC 7120

Cyanobacteria are promising chassis for synthetic biology applications due to the fact that they are photosynthetic organisms capable of growing in simple, inexpensive media. Given their slower growth rate than other model organisms such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there are fewer synthetic biology tools and promoters available for use in model cyanobacteria. Here, we compared a small library of promoter–riboswitch constructs for synthetic biology applications in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, a model filamentous cyanobacterium. These constructs were designed from six cyanobacterial promoters of various strengths, each paired with one of two theophylline-responsive riboswitches. The promoter–riboswitch pairs were cloned upstream of a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (cat) gene, and CAT activity was quantified using an in vitro assay. Addition of theophylline to cultures increased the CAT activity in almost all cases, allowing inducible protein production with natively constitutive promoters. We found that riboswitch F tended to have a lower induced and uninduced production compared to riboswitch E for the weak and medium promoters, although the difference was larger for the uninduced production, in accord with previous research. The strong promoters yielded a higher baseline CAT activity than medium strength and weak promoters. In addition, we observed no appreciable difference between CAT activity measured from strong promoters cultured in uninduced and induced conditions. The results of this study add to the genetic toolbox for cyanobacteria and allow future natural product and synthetic biology researchers to choose a construct that fits their needs.

Heterologous production of cyanobacterial compounds

Cyanobacteria produce a plethora of compounds with unique chemical structures and diverse biological activities. Importantly, the increasing availability of cyanobacterial genome sequences and the rapid development of bioinformatics tools have unraveled the tremendous potential of cyanobacteria in producing new natural products. However, the discovery of these compounds based on cyanobacterial genomes has progressed slowly as the majority of their corresponding biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) are silent. In addition, cyanobacterial strains are often slow-growing, difficult for genetic engineering, or cannot be cultivated yet, limiting the use of host genetic engineering approaches for discovery. On the other hand, genetically tractable hosts such as Escherichia coli, Actinobacteria, and yeast have been developed for the heterologous expression of cyanobacterial BGCs. More recently, there have been increased interests in developing model cyanobacterial strains as heterologous production platforms. Herein, we present recent advances in the heterologous production of cyanobacterial compounds in both cyanobacterial and noncyanobacterial hosts. Emerging strategies for BGC assembly, host engineering, and optimization of BGC expression are included for fostering the broader applications of synthetic biology tools in the discovery of new cyanobacterial natural products.

Photo-augmented PHB production from CO2 or fructose by Cupriavidus necator and shape-optimized CdS nanorods

Particulate photocatalysts developed for the solar energy-driven reduction of the greenhouse gas CO₂ have a small product range and low specificity. Hybrid photosynthesis expands the number of products with photocatalysts harvesting sunlight and transferring charges to microbes harboring versatile metabolisms for bioproduction. Besides CO₂, abiotic photocatalysts have been employed to increase microbial production yields of reduced compounds from organic carbon substrates. Most single-reactor hybrid photosynthesis systems comprise CdS assembled in situ by microbial activity. This approach limits optimization of the morphology, crystal structure, and crystallinity of CdS for higher performance, which is usually done via synthesis methods incompatible with life. Here, shape and activity optimized CdS nanorods were hydrothermally produced and subsequently applied to Cupriavidus necator for the heterotrophic and autotrophic production of the bioplastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). C. necator with CdS NR under light produced 1.5 times more PHB when compared to the same bacterium with suboptimal commercially-available CdS. Illuminated C. necator with CdS NR synthesized 1.41 g PHB from fructose over 120 h and 28 mg PHB from CO₂ over 48 h. Interestingly, the beneficial effect of CdS NR was specific to C. necator as the metabolism of other microbes often employed for bioproduction including yeast and bacteria was negatively impacted. These results demonstrate that hybrid photosynthesis is more productive when the photocatalyst characteristics are optimized via a separated synthesis process prior to being coupled with microbes. Furthermore, bioproduction improvement by CdS-based photocatalyst requires specific microbial species highlighting the importance of screening efforts for the development of performant hybrid photosynthesis.

Heterologous Expression of Cryptomaldamide in a Cyanobacterial Host

Filamentous marine cyanobacteria make a variety of bioactive molecules that are produced by polyketide synthases, nonribosomal peptide synthetases, and hybrid pathways that are encoded by large biosynthetic gene clusters. These cyanobacterial natural products represent potential drug leads; however, thorough pharmacological investigations have been impeded by the limited quantity of compound that is typically available from the native organisms. Additionally, investigations of the biosynthetic gene clusters and enzymatic pathways have been difficult due to the inability to conduct genetic manipulations in the native producers. Here we report a set of genetic tools for the heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters in the cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 and Anabaena (Nostoc) PCC 7120. To facilitate the transfer of gene clusters in both strains, we engineered a strain of Anabaena that contains S. elongatus homologous sequences for chromosomal recombination at a neutral site and devised a CRISPR-based strategy to efficiently obtain segregated double recombinant clones of Anabaena. These genetic tools were used to express the large 28.7 kb cryptomaldamide biosynthetic gene cluster from the marine cyanobacterium Moorena (Moorea) producens JHB in both model strains. S. elongatus did not produce cryptomaldamide; however, high-titer production of cryptomaldamide was obtained in Anabaena. The methods developed in this study will facilitate the heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters isolated from marine cyanobacteria and complex metagenomic samples.

The Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology of Marine Natural Products from Leptolyngbya, a Chemically Endowed Genus of Cyanobacteria

Leptolyngbya, a well-known genus of cyanobacteria, is found in various ecological habitats including marine, fresh water, swamps, and rice fields. Species of this genus are associated with many ecological phenomena such as nitrogen fixation, primary productivity through photosynthesis and algal blooms. As a result, there have been a number of investigations of the ecology, natural product chemistry, and biological characteristics of members of this genus. In general, the secondary metabolites of cyanobacteria are considered to be rich sources for drug discovery and development. In this review, the secondary metabolites reported in marine Leptolyngbya with their associated biological activities or interesting biosynthetic pathways are reviewed, and new insights and perspectives on their metabolic capacities are gained.