난배양 미생물로부터 천연물질을 찾기 위하여 토양으로부터 직접분리 된 DNA와 cosmid vector를 이용하여 metagenomic library를 제작하고 탐색 하였다. 대장균에서 발현되는 유전자은행 초기 탐색 결과 LB배지에서 잘 자라면서 브라운 색깔을 내는 여러 개의 clone을 선발 하였다. 선발된 여러 후보 clone중 pYS85C는 돌연변이를 유도하였으며 색깔을 생산하지않는 clone 들에 대하여 염기서열을 결정 하였다. 돌연변이clone들로부터 결정된 pYS85C 염기서열 결과 아미노산이 393개이며 44.5 kDa으로 색소형성에 관여하는 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvic acid dioxygenase(HPPD) 유전자로 판명 되었다. 또한, BLAST비교 분석에서 이효소는 기존에 밝혀진 HPPD효소와 60% 정도의 identity를 보였고 C-말단에서는 많은 conserved domain이 있었다. 이러한 결과로 볼 때 천연물질을 합성 할 수 있는 유전자는 토양DNA로부터 직접 분리되어 발현될 수 있으며 이러한 기술은 새로운 물질을 찾는데 중요한 tool이 될 수 있다.
To access the natural products of uncultured microorganisms, we constructed and screened the metagenomic DNA libraries by using a cosmid vector and DNA inserts isolated directly from soil. Initial screening of the libraries in Escherichia coli resulted in the isolation of several clones that produce a dark brown color when grown in LB medium. One of the positive clones, designed pYS85C, was transposon mutagenized and the DNA surrounding the transposon insertions in cosmids that no longer conferred the production of brown pigment to E. coli was sequenced. Annotation of the pYS85C sequence obtained from the transposon mutagenesis experiment indicated a single 393 amino acid open reading frame (ORF) with a molecular mass of about 44.5 kDa, predicted to be a 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenases (HPPDs), was responsible for the observed brown pigment. In a BLAST search against deposited sequence, the translated protein from this ORF showed moderate-level identity (>60%) to the other known HPPDs and was most conserved in the C-terminal region of the protein. These results show that genes involved in natural product synthesis can be cloned directly from soil DNA and expressed in a heterologous host, supporting the idea that this technology has the potential to provide novel natural products from the wealth of environmental microbial diversity and is a potentially important new tool for drug discovery.
