Granaticin (CAS: 19879-06-2, C22H10O10), a secondary metabolite, is a member of the benzoisochromanequinone (BIQ) class of aromatic polyketides whose members include actinorhodin, medermycin, and kalafungin. Some of these compounds possess anticancer, antibacterial, anticoccidial, or platelet aggregation inhibitory activities[1]. For example, granaticin has biological activity that inhibits gram-positive bacteria and cytotoxic activity for tumor cells as an inhibitor of enzymes such as farnesyltransferase[2] and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases[3]. Its derivatives, such as granaticin B, dihydrogranaticin, and dihydrogranaticin B, also have some of the same functions[4]. A new granaticin analogue and its hydrolysis products, 6-deoxy-13-hydroxy-8,11-dione-dihydrogrsnsticins B and A, were isolated by Jiang et al. from Strepomyces sp. CCPC200532 and both analogue products showed similar cytotoxicity against cancer cells[5]. In recent years, granaticin B has been used in pharmaceuticals and as an excipient for treating proliferative disease and inhibiting cell growth in its new crystalline form[6]. Granaticin and its derivatives, combined with some selected carriers, were used as inhibitors to prevent and cure diseases have the characteristics of Hartnup syndrome from indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) or tryptophan 2,3-dioygenase (TDO). Therefore, exploring the new derivatives of granaticin has attracted great interest from researchers.
Due to the excellent bioactivity of granaticin and its derivatives, it is necessary to investigate the synthesis of granaticin. Although the mechanism of skeleton synthesis is clear, the subsequent modification process is not yet clear, and it plays an important effect on the bioactivity of the chemicals. The synthesis of granaticin, which involves a type II polyketide synthase (PKS II) including PKS, post-PKS (tailoring) modification and deoxysuger biosynthesis, was detected in the 1990s[7]; the biosynthesis pathway was proposed and supplemented[8], and the functions of some unknown genes have been determined gradually[9–10]. The structure of granaticin consists of a BIQ chromophore and a sugar moiety. The granaticin chromophore, a basic carbocyclic skeleton of the BIQs, is assembled by decarboxylative condensations of mathonyl residues to give a dicyclic intermediate, which is catalyzed by the minimal PKS subunits (ketosynthase (KS), chain length factor (CLF), acyl carrier protein (ACP)) and its closely associated enzyme in PKS[11]. The intermediate undergoes subsequent modifications, including stereospecific ketoreduction, enoylreduction and oxygenation, in the later “tailoring” steps. The biosynthesis of the granaticin sugar moiety is likely to follow canonical pathways for the formation of deoxysugars and aminosugars. The 2,6-dideoxyhexose moiety is catalyzed from glucose and attaches to the granaticin chromophore via two carbon-carbon bonds at C-9 and C-10 with the help of glycosyltransferase (GT). The mechanism of C-glycosylation and attachment via the C-C bond in granaticin biosynthesis remains enigmatic, and further work is required to comprehend this unprecedented sugar attachment[8].
The known granaticin producer strains are Streptomyces olivaceus[12], Streptomyces violaceoruber[13], Streptomyces thermoviolaceus subsp. pingens[14], Streptomyces var. granaticus[15], Streptomyces lateritus[16], Streptomyces litmogenes[17] and Streptomyces vietnamensis[18]. The known cloned and sequenced biosynthesis gene clusters of granaticin are Streptomyces violaceoruber Tü22[7], S. vietnamensis GIMV4.0001T[18] and Streptomyces sp. PTY08712[19]. However, some unknown genes are also presented, and the biosynthesis pathway of glycosylation has still not been characterized clearly[8]. Granaticin has attracted growing interest for various biotechnological applications in the fields of biomedicine. Therefore, it is meaningful to sequence new granaticin-producing strains for the future study of BIQ mechanisms and biomedicine applications.
In our previous study, Streptomyces sp. A1013Y, a ubiquitous gram-positive bacterium, was isolated from a soil sample from a dairy plant in Henan Province and identified. Streptomyces sp. A1013Y can produce blue pigment, which was identified as granaticin, during fermentation at 37 °C. In this article, the complete genome of S. sp. A1013Y was sequenced and assembled, and the genome information was annotated and analyzed, which included secondary metabolite biosynthetic cluster prediction and phylogenetic and ANI analyses. Homologous recombination was used to construct a nongranaticin mutant, and HPLC and LC-MS analyses were used to detect the fermentation liquid, which conformed the presence of a granaticin biosynthetic cluster. For the post-synthesis of granaticin analyses and biomedicine applications in the future, it is meaningful to sequence and analyze S. sp. A1013Y genome information.