A quick and reliable method for monitoring gene expression in actinomycetes

Amycolatopsis balhimycina DSM5908 is the producer of the vancomycin-type glycopeptide antibiotic balhimycin. Balhimycin production is controlled by transcriptional regulators and depends on different environmental factors. To analyse the regulatory network Ptba, a representative promoter of the balhimycin gene cluster, was fused to the reporter gene egfp and integrated into the genome of A. balhimycina. Balhimycin production, fluorescence intensity and the amount of tba-transcript were determined under different cultivation conditions in microtiter plates. Thus we could demonstrate that these values are directly correlated. This approach facilitates the analysis of a large number of samples in parallel and it provides the opportunity to easily define conditions to increase balhimycin production.