Genome-wide transcriptome response of Streptomyces tsukubaensis to N-acetylglucosamine: effect on tacrolimus biosynthesis

Chitin is the second most abundant carbohydrate biopolymer present in soils and is utilized by antibiotic-producing Streptomyces species. Its monomer, N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), regulates the developmental program of the model organism Streptomyces coelicolor. GlcNAc blocks differentiation when growing on rich medium whilst it promotes development on poor culture media. However, it is unclear if the same GlcNAc regulatory profile observed in S. coelicolor applies also to other industrially important Streptomyces species. We report here the negative effect of GlcNAc on differentiation and tacrolimus (FK506) production by Streptomyces tsukubaensis NRRL 18488. Using microarrays technology, we found that GlcNAc represses the transcription of fkbN, encoding the main transcriptional activator of the tacrolimus biosynthetic cluster, and of ppt1, encoding a phosphopantheteinyltransferase involved in tacrolimus biosynthesis. On the contrary, GlcNAc stimulated transcription of genes related to amino acid and nucleotide biosynthesis, DNA replication, RNA translation, glycolysis and pyruvate metabolism. The results obtained support those previously reported for S. coelicolor, but some important differences were observed; for example genes involved in GlcNAc transport and metabolism and genes encoding transcriptional regulators such as crr, ptsI, nagE1, nagE2, nagB, chiA, chiJ, ngcE, dasR or atrA are not significantly induced in S. tsukubaensis by GlcNAc addition. Differences in the GlcNAc transport systems, in the physiology of S. tsukubaensis and S. coelicolor and/or the different composition of the culture media used are likely to be responsible for the discrepancies observed between these species.