Streptomycetes are an important source of natural products potentially applicable in the pharmaceutical industry. Many of these drugs are secondary metabolites whose biosynthetic genes are very often poorly expressed under laboratory cultivation conditions. In many cases, antibiotic-resistant mutants exhibit increased production of natural drugs, which facilitates the identification and isolation of new substances. In this study, we report the induction of a type II polyketide synthase gene cluster in the marine strain Streptomyces albus subsp. chlorinus through the selection of streptomycin-resistant mutants, resulting in overproduction of the novel compound fredericamycin C2 (1). Fredericamycin C2 (1) is structurally related to the potent antitumor drug lead fredericamycin A.
Keywords: antitumor; fredericamycin; overproduction; secondary metabolites; streptomycetes; streptomycin-resistant; type II PKS.