Project description:Cyanobacteria are a rich source of natural products and are known to produce terpenoids. These bacteria are the major source of the musty-smelling terpenes geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol, which are found in many natural water supplies; however, no terpene synthases have been characterized from these organisms to date. Here, we describe the characterization of three sesquiterpene synthases identified in Nostoc sp. strain PCC 7120 (terpene synthase NS1) and Nostoc punctiforme PCC 73102 (terpene synthases NP1 and NP2). The second terpene synthase in N. punctiforme (NP2) is homologous to fusion-type sesquiterpene synthases from Streptomyces spp. shown to produce geosmin via an intermediate germacradienol. The enzymes were functionally expressed in Escherichia coli, and their terpene products were structurally identified as germacrene A (from NS1), the eudesmadiene 8a-epi-alpha-selinene (from NP1), and germacradienol (from NP2). The product of NP1, 8a-epi-alpha-selinene, so far has been isolated only from termites, in which it functions as a defense compound. Terpene synthases NP1 and NS1 are part of an apparent minicluster that includes a P450 and a putative hybrid two-component protein located downstream of the terpene synthases. Coexpression of P450 genes with their adjacent located terpene synthase genes in E. coli demonstrates that the P450 from Nostoc sp. can be functionally expressed in E. coli when coexpressed with a ferredoxin gene and a ferredoxin reductase gene from Nostoc and that the enzyme oxygenates the NS1 terpene product germacrene A. This represents to the best of our knowledge the first example of functional expression of a cyanobacterial P450 in E. coli.
Project description:Transcriptomic analyses using high-throughput methods have revealed abundant antisense transcription in bacteria. Most frequently, antisense transcription is due to the overlap of mRNAs with long 5’ regions or 3’ ends that extend beyond the coding sequence. In addition, antisense RNAs that do not contain any coding sequence are also observed. Nostoc sp. PCC 7120 is a filamentous cyanobacterium that, under nitrogen limitation, behaves as a multicellular organism with division of labor among two different cell types that depend on each other, the vegetative CO2-fixing cells and the nitrogen-fixing heterocysts. Differentiation of heterocysts depends on the global nitrogen regulator NtcA and requires the specific regulator HetR. To identify antisense RNAs potentially involved in heterocyst differentiation we performed an RNA-Seq analysis of cells subjected to nitrogen limitation (either at 9 or 24 hours after nitrogen removal) and analyzed the results in combination with a genome-wide set of nitrogen-regulated transcriptional start sites and a prediction of transcriptional terminators. Our analysis resulted in the definition of a transcriptional map including more than 4,000 transcripts, 65% of them in antisense orientation to other transcripts. In addition to overlapping mRNAs we identified nitrogen-regulated non-coding antisense RNAs transcribed from NtcA-dependent or HetR-dependent promoters.