EXPRESSION OF AN HETEROLOGOUS GENE ACTIVATING ACTINORHODIN BIOSYNTHESIS IN STREPTOMYCES-LIVIDANS AND STREPTOMYCES-COELICOLOR

Production of the blue-pigmented antibiotic actinorhodin resulted in a ctivation in the non-producer strain Streptomyces lividans, but not in the natural producer strain Streptomyces coelicolor, when transformed with an heterologous activator gene from Streptomyces fradiae. The ge ne encodes a 132 nucleotide-long transcript, responsible for the actin orhodin production phenotype, and thought to act as a putative antisen se RNA, which has been detected in the transformed S.lividans cultures by reverse transcription followed by cyclic amplification.