Thymidine-dependent Staphylococcus aureus small-colony variants: human pathogens that are relevant not only in cases of cystic fibrosis lung disease.

ABSTRACT We report the isolation of thymidine-dependent small-colony variants (TD-SCVs) of Staphylococcus aureus from unusual infection sites of patients with chronic soft tissue infection, tympanitis, bronchitis, peritonitis, and septicemia. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the essential growth factor for TD-SCVs, i.e., thymidine, and its metabolite dTMP are present in various human specimens.

Back Cover: Promoter Activation in Δ hfq Mutants as an Efficient Tool for Specialized Metabolite Production Enabling Direct Bioactivity Testing (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 52/2019)

Rücktitelbild: Promoter Activation in Δ hfq Mutants as an Efficient Tool for Specialized Metabolite Production Enabling Direct Bioactivity Testing (Angew. Chem. 52/2019)

Promoter Activation in Dhfq Mutants as an Efficient Tool for Specialized Metabolite Production Enabling Direct Bioactivity Testing

Abstract Natural products (NPs) from microorganisms have been important sources for discovering new therapeutic and chemical entities. While their corresponding biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) can be easily identified by gene‐sequence‐similarity‐based bioinformatics strategies, the actual access to these NPs for structure elucidation and bioactivity testing remains difficult. Deletion of the gene encoding the RNA chaperone, Hfq, results in strains losing the production of most NPs. By exchanging the native promoter of a desired BGC against an inducible promoter in Δhfq mutants, almost exclusive production of the corresponding NP from the targeted BGC in Photorhabdus, Xenorhabdus and Pseud…