TY  - JOUR
A1  - Calchera, Anjuli
A1  - Dal Grande, Francesco
A1  - Bode, Helge Björn
A1  - Schmitt, Imke
T1  - Biosynthetic gene content of the "Perfume Lichens" Evernia prunastri and Pseudevernia furfuracea
T2  - Molecules
N2  - Lichen-forming fungi produce a vast number of unique natural products with a wide variety of biological activities and human uses. Although lichens have remarkable potential in natural product research and industry, the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of lichen metabolites are poorly understood. Here we use genome mining and comparative genomics to assess biosynthetic gene clusters and their putative regulators in the genomes of two lichen-forming fungi, which have substantial commercial value in the perfume industry, Evernia prunastri and Pseudevernia furfuracea. We report a total of 80 biosynthetic gene clusters (polyketide synthases (PKS), non-ribosomal peptide synthetases and terpene synthases) in E. prunastri and 51 in P. furfuracea. We present an in-depth comparison of 11 clusters, which show high homology between the two species. A ketosynthase (KS) phylogeny shows that biosynthetic gene clusters from E. prunastri and P. furfuracea are widespread across the Fungi. The phylogeny includes 15 genomes of lichenized fungi and all fungal PKSs with known functions from the MIBiG database. Phylogenetically closely related KS domains predict not only similar PKS architecture but also similar cluster architecture. Our study highlights the untapped biosynthetic richness of lichen-forming fungi, provides new insights into lichen biosynthetic pathways and facilitates heterologous expression of lichen biosynthetic gene clusters.
KW  - lichen secondary metabolites
KW  - tree moss
KW  - oakmoss
KW  - biosynthetic gene clusters
KW  - polyketide synthases
KW  - non-ribosomal peptide synthetases
KW  - terpene synthases
KW  - transcription factor
KW  - phylogeny
KW  - comparative genomics
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/48603
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-486035
SN  - 1420-3049
N1  - This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).
VL  - 24
IS  - 1, Art. 203
SP  - 1
EP  - 21
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -