Cloning and characterization of new glycopeptide gene clusters found in an environmental DNA megalibrary.

ABSTRACT: Glycopeptide antibiotics have long served as drugs of last resort for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant gram-positive bacterial infections. Resistance to the clinically relevant glycopeptides, vancomycin and teicoplanin, threatens to undermine the usefulness of this important class of antibiotics. DNA extracted from a geographically diverse collection of soil samples was screened by PCR for the presence of sequences related to OxyC, an oxidative coupling enzyme found in glycopeptide biosynthetic gene clusters. Every soil sample examined contained at least 1 unique OxyC gene sequence. In an attempt to access the biosynthetic gene clusters associated with these OxyC sequences, a 10,000,000-membered environmental DNA (eDNA) megalibrary was created from a single soil sample. Two unique gly

SUBMITTER: Banik JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2582259 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature