Co‐cultivation of Sorangium cellulosum strains affects cellular growth and biosynthesis of secondary metabolite epothilones. Issue 2 (18th April 2013) - Li, Peng‐fei
Abstract: Sorangium cellulosum, a cellulolytic myxobacterium, is capable of producing a variety of bioactive secondary metabolites. Epothilones are anti‐eukaryotic secondary metabolites produced by some S. cellulosum strains. In this study, we analyzed interactions between 12 strains of S. cellulosum consisting of epothilone‐producers and non‐epothilone producers isolated from two distinct soil habitats. Co‐cultivation on filter papers showed that different Sorangium strains inhibited one another's growth, whereas epothilone production by the producing strains changed markedly for most (73%) pairwise mixtures. Using a quantitative polymerase chain reaction, we demonstrated that the expression of epothilone biosynthetic genes in the epothilone producers typically changed significantly when these bacteria were mixed with non‐producing strains. The results indicated that intraspecies interactions between different S. cellulosum strains not only inhibited the growth of partners, but also could change epothilone production.