Isolation and identification of pentalenolactone analogs from Streptomyces sp. NRRL S-4

Abstract

Terpene synthases are widely distributed in Actinobacteria. Genome sequencing of Strep-tomyces sp. NRRL S-4 uncovered a biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) that putatively synthesizes pentalenolactone type terpenes. Guided by genomic information, the S-4 strain was chemically investigated, resulting in the isolation of two new sesquiterpenoids, 1-deoxy-8α-hydroxypentalenic acid (1) and 1-deoxy-9β-hydroxy-11-oxopentalenic acid (2), as shunt metabolites of the pentaleno-lactone (3) biosynthesis pathway. Their structures and absolute configurations were elucidated by analyses of HRESIMS and NMR spectroscopic data as well as time-dependent density functional theory/electronic circular dichroism (TDDFT/ECD) calculations. Compounds 1 and 2 exhibited moderate antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. These results confirmed that the pentalenolactone pathway was functional in this organism and will facilitate efforts for exploring Actinobacteria using further genome mining strategies.