Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
2
pubmed:dateCreated
2001-4-25
pubmed:abstractText
Natural products have been a critically important source of clinically relevant small molecule therapeutics. However, the discovery rate of novel structural classes of antimicrobial molecules has declined. Recently, increasing evidence has shown that the number of species cultivated from soil represents less than 1% of the total population, opening up the exciting possibility that these uncultured species may provide a large untapped pool from which novel natural products can be discovered. We have constructed and expressed in E. coli a BAC (bacterial artificial chromosome) library containing genomic fragments of DNA (5-120kb) isolated directly from soil organisms (S-DNA). Screening of the library resulted in the identification of several antimicrobial activities expressed by different recombinant clones. One clone (mg1.1) has been partially characterized and found to express several small molecules related to and including indirubin. These results show that genes involved in natural product synthesis can be cloned directly from S-DNA and expressed in a heterologous host, supporting the idea that this technology has the potential to provide novel natural products from the wealth of environmental microbial diversity and is a potentially important new tool for drug discovery.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Apr
pubmed:issn
1464-1801
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
3
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
301-8
pubmed:dateRevised
2006-4-6
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2001
pubmed:articleTitle
Expression and isolation of antimicrobial small molecules from soil DNA libraries.
pubmed:affiliation
Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ian.macneil@aventis.com
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article