• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.10-27
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• 2020

Endophytes are defined as microorganisms that spend part of lifetime interior of plant tissues without causing negative effects. They have been used for agricultural purpose, biofuel production, bioremediation, medication, etc. In particular, endophytes have been emerged as a good source for bioactive secondary metabolites. A large number of secondary metabolites are currently being reported. In this report, we focus on the secondary metabolites that were originated from endophytic fungi inhabiting medicinal plants. They were classified into several groups such as nitrogenous compounds, steroids, sulfide-containing metabolites, terpenoids, polyketides, and miscellaneous for discussion of chemical structures and biological activities.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.183-190
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• 2020

Genome mining has recently emerged as a powerful strategy to discover novel microbial secondary metabolites. However, more than 50% of biosynthetic gene clusters are not transcribed under standardized laboratory culture condition. Several methods have been applied to activate silent biosynthetic gene clusters in the microbes so far. Among the regulatory systems for production of secondary metabolites, global regulators, which affect transcription of genes through regulatory cascades, typically govern the production of small molecules. In this review, global regulators to affect production of microbial secondary metabolites were discussed.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.14-14
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• 2015

Fungi are of particular interest due to their capacity to produce an extensive array of secondary metabolites. While many secondary metabolites have no known functions to the producing fungal organisms, these metabolites have tremendous importance to humans with beneficial (e.g., antibiotics) or detrimental (e.g., mycotoxins) properties. In this study, two important filamentous fungi, Fusarium verticillioides and Mycosphaerella graminicola were selected as target species and the genes regulatory functions on the biosynthesis of secondary metabolisms were studied. Functional genomics including forward and reverse genetics, and proteomics were utilized to better understand the complex secondary metabolism regulations in both F. verticillioides and M. graminicola. Identified genes in either F. verticillioides or M. graminicola background were CPP1 (a putative protein phosphatase gene), GAC1 (encoding a GTPase activating protein), MCC1(encoding c-type cyclin), and the velvet gene, MVE1. Our data suggest that there are diverse regulatory genes on fungal secondary metabolites with distinct or overlapping functional roles.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.667-686
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• 2019

Streptomyces are attractive microbial cell factories that have industrial capability to produce a wide array of bioactive secondary metabolites. However, the genetic potential of the Streptomyces species has not been fully utilized because most of their secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (SM-BGCs) are silent under laboratory culture conditions. In an effort to activate SM-BGCs encoded in Streptomyces genomes, synthetic biology has emerged as a robust strategy to understand, design, and engineer the biosynthetic capability of Streptomyces secondary metabolites. In this regard, diverse synthetic biology tools have been developed for Streptomyces species with technical advances in DNA synthesis, sequencing, and editing. Here, we review recent progress in the development of synthetic biology tools for the production of novel secondary metabolites in Streptomyces, including genomic elements and genome engineering tools for Streptomyces, the heterologous gene expression strategy of designed biosynthetic gene clusters in the Streptomyces chassis strain, and future directions to expand diversity of novel secondary metabolites.

• BMB Reports
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.475-483
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• 1998

Many antibiotics contain partially deoxygenated sugar components that are usually essential for biological activity, affinity, structural stability, and solubility of antibiotics. Gene probes of the biosynthetic genes related with the deoxysugar were obtained from PCR. Primers were designed from the conserved peptide sequences of the known dTDP-D-glucose 4,6-dehydratases, which are the key step enzymes in the biosynthesis of deoxysugar. The primers were applied to amplify parts of dehydratase genes to 27 actinomycetes that produce the metabolites containing deoxysugar as structural constituents. About 180 and 340 bp DNA fragments from all of the actinomycetes were produced by PCR and analyzed by Southern blot and DNA sequencing. The PCR products were used as gene probes to clone the biosynthetic gene clusters for the antibiotic mithramycin, rubradirin, spectinomycin, and elaiophyrin. This method should allow for detecting of the biosynthetic gene clusters of a vast array of secondary metabolites isolated from actinomycetes because of the widespread existence of deoxysugar constituents in secondary metabolites.

• Korean Journal of Pharmacognosy
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.217-221
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• 2016

Endophytic fungi have yielded a variety of secondary metabolites so far. In the course of the project to find bioactive secondary metabolites from cultures of endophytic fungi, an isolate of Arthrinium phaeospermum (JS 0567) was selected for chemical investigation. A large scale culture of this strain in rice media was extracted with an organic solvent and the extract was subjected to a serious of chromatography, which led to six metabolites. Their chemical structures were elucidated as 2,3,6,8-tetrahydroxy-1-methylxanthone(1), 2,3,4,6,8-pentahydroxy-1-methylxanthone(2), 3,4,6,8-tetrahydroxy-1-methylxanthone(3), 3,6,8-trihydroxy-1-methylxanthone(4), 2,4,2',4',6'-pentahydroxy-6-methylbenzophenone(5), and 5,7-di hydroxy-3-methylphthalide(6) on the basis of spectroscopic data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on the secondary metabolites from Arthrinium phaeospermum.

• Mycobiology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.506-511
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• 2019

We investigated the antifungal activities of an endophytic fungus identified as Acaromyces ingoldii, found on a loblolly (Pinus taeda L.) pine bolt in Louisiana during routine laboratory microbial isolations. The specific objectives were to determine the inhibitory properties of A. ingoldii secondary metabolites (crude extract) on the mycelial growth of a brown-rot fungus Gloeophyllum trabeum and a white-rot fungus Trametes versicolor, and to determine the effective concentration of A. ingoldii crude preparation against the two decay fungi in vitro. Results show the crude preparation of A. ingoldii from liquid culture possesses significant mycelial growth inhibitory properties that are concentration dependent against the brownrot and white-rot fungi evaluated. An increase in the concentration of A. ingoldii secondary metabolites significantly decreased the mycelial growth of both wood decay fungi. G. trabeum was more sensitive to the inhibitory effect of the secondary metabolites than T. versicolor. Identification of specific A. ingoldii secondary metabolites, and analysis of their efficacy/specificity warrants further study. Findings from this work may provide the first indication of useful roles for Acaromyces species in a forest environment, and perhaps a future potential in the development of biocontrol-based wood preservation systems.

• Journal of Marine Bioscience and Biotechnology
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.73-76
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• 2007

A large number of natural products were worldwidely discovered from maine organisms. There are many secondary metabolites produced by maine organisms which showed very strong bio-activities and distinct bio-active mechanisms. In korea, about 350 secondary metabolites including more than 280 novel compounds have been isolated and structually defined. Many researches for developing products such as cosmetics, functional food materials, anti-fouling substances are being performed using distinct activities of marine organisms. Although the research on marine natural products has been remained at its initial or developing stage of drug development, significant progress has been made for isolation, structure determination and bioassay of secondary metabolites.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2021.04a
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• pp.10-10
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• 2021

Natural products have been used as drugs and cosmetics due to their bioactivity and their biochemical diversity. Natural products usually refer to secondary metabolites produced by various living organisms including marine animals, insects, microbes, amphibians, and plants. These secondary metabolites, which usually have molecular weights less than 2,000 amu, are unnecessary for survival, development, growth, and reproduction but play major roles in plant defense systems against other species. These secondary metabolites such as lignans, flavonoids, monoterpenes, and phenylethanoid glycosides showed various biological activities like anti-oxidant behavior, anti-cancer properties, neuroprotective properties, and so forth. Thus, isolation and elucidation of secondary metabolites from living organisms is of great significance to human life.

• 한국균학회소식:학술대회논문집
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.51-51
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• 2018

The application of recombinant DNA technology has been remarkable and nearly replaced commonly used traditional methods. Traditional industrial microbiology long depended on the discovery of valuable strains and mutagenesis of such strains to improve its secretion capacity of enzymes and secondary metabolites on the industrial scale. Commodities included industrial enzymes and biopharmaceuticals. The purpose of genome manipulation by the crossing of different strains or genetic recombination of naked DNA to the genome is of increased production of valuable metabolites. We optimized a transformation method to either for removal of innate genes, introduction of heterologous genes, or combination of both. We have been used selected whole or partial genes to manipulate target fungi toward the development of strains overproducing invaluable proteins. We have also used the whole genome sequence information of fungal genomes in public databases and functional genomics approach to select genes to manipulate and eventually contributing greatly to the development of overproducing industrial strains overproducing proteins or secondary metabolites. I will briefly review 1) filamentous fungi as a host for production of recombinant proteins and secondary metabolites, 2) markets of industrial metabolites, 3) a new approach to manipulate up to five genes at the same time in the system that ProxEnrem uses.