Activation of a gene cluster in Streptomyces lavendulae subsp. lavendulae CCM 3239 induced strevertene production
Filip Opaterny, Rachel Javorova, Michal Soral, Lubomira Feckova, Dominika Csolleiova, Renata Novakova, Kamila Cholvadtova, Iveta Uhliarikova, Maria Kopacova, Vladimir Patoprsty, Bronislava Rezuchova, Beatrica Sevcikova, Jan Kormanec · 2026
Read Activation of a gene cluster in Streptomyces lavendulae subsp. lavendulae CCM 3239 induced strevertene production by Filip Opaterny, Rachel Javorova, Michal Soral, Lubomira Feckova, Dominika Csolleiova, Renata Novakova, Kamila Cholvadtova, Iveta Uhliarikova, Maria Kopacova, Vladimir Patoprsty, Bronislava Rezuchova, Beatrica Sevcikova, Jan Kormanec (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13500442.txt.
Description
Filip Opaterny and colleagues demonstrate in 2026 a simple switch for waking silent antibiotic-making gene clusters in a Streptomyces bacterium, a genus prized as a source of medicines. The strain studied carries 36 such clusters, nearly all cryptic or silent under lab conditions. Their strategy replaces a cluster's own weak promoter, the DNA on-switch, with a strong standard one through targeted recombination, first proven by switching on vivid blue pigment production from a dormant gene.
Applying the switch inside a silent cluster for chain-building enzymes produced two distinct antifungal compounds depending on exactly where the promoter landed. Both showed the spectral signature of polyenes, a class of antifungal molecules, and structural work identified them as strevertene relatives, one an intermediate on the path to the other. The intermediate proved roughly twice as potent against fungi in the reported tests, supporting promoter swapping as a discovery tool.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Filip Opaterny, Rachel Javorova, Michal Soral, Lubomira Feckova, Dominika Csolleiova, Renata Novakova, Kamila Cholvadtova, Iveta Uhliarikova, Maria Kopacova, Vladimir Patoprsty, Bronislava Rezuchova, Beatrica Sevcikova, Jan Kormanec |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 59261 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |