Biosynthetic Interrogation of Soil Metagenomes Reveals Metamarin, an Uncommon Cyclomarin Congener with Activity against <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i>.
Li L, MacIntyre LW, Ali T, Russo R, Koirala B, Hernandez Y, Brady SF.
Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases. Unfortunately, the development of antibiotic resistance threatens our current therapeutic arsenal, which has necessitated the discovery and development of novel antibiotics against drug-resistant <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> (<i>Mtb</i>). Cyclomarin A and rufomycin I are structurally related cyclic heptapeptides assembled by nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs), which show potent anti-<i>Mtb</i> activity with a new cellular target, the caseinolytic protein ClpC1. An NRPS adenylation domain survey using DNA extracted from ∼2000 ecologically diverse soils found low cyclomarin/rufomycin biosynthetic diversity. In this survey, a family of cyclomarin/rufomycin-like biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) that encode metamarin, an uncommon cyclomarin congener with potent activity against both <i>Mtb</i> H37Rv and multidrug-resistant <i>Mtb</i> clinical isolates was identified. Metamarin effectively inhibits <i>Mtb</i> growth in murine macrophages and increases the activities of ClpC1 ATPase and the associated ClpC1/P1/P2 protease complex, thus causing cell death by uncontrolled protein degradation.