Rapid and efficient isolation of genes for biosynthesis of peptide antibiotics from gram-positive bacterial strains

Peptide synthetases are large multifunctional enzyme complexes that catalyze the nonribosomal synthesis of a structurally diverse family of peptide antibiotics. These enzymes are composed of functionally independent domains with independent enzymatic activities. Their specific linkage order of domains forms the protein template that defines the sequence of the incorporated amino acids. Within each domain, several motifs of highly conserved sequences have been identified from the sequence alignment of the various peptide synthetases [30]. Taking advantage of the conserved nucleotide sequence of Core 1 and Core 2, we designed PCR primers to amplify the peptide synthetase genes from three different gram-positive bacterial strains. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the amplified PCR products from those three strains showed significant homology to various peptide synthetase genes, suggesting that the PCR products are parts of peptide synthetase genes. Therefore, this rapid and efficient PCR technique can be used for the isolation of peptide synthetase genes from various strains.