The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry hosts guest speaker Amy M. Gehring, professor of chemistry at Williams College. Her topic will be "Understanding Antibiotic Production in the Soil Bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor ."

The seminar will be preceded by a light reception at 4:30 p.m. in the David Love Lounge.

Sponsored by the Luke E. Steiner Lecture Fund.

Abstract

Streptomyces is a genus of soil bacteria well-known for the biosynthesis of a diverse array of natural products that have found use in medicine.  For example, the anti-parasitic drug avermectin, the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin, and the antibiotic daptomycin are all produced by Streptomyces species. 

Many of the bioactive molecules made by the streptomycetes, nature’s amazing synthetic chemists, are polyketides or non-ribosomal peptides.  We are studying a post-translational modification that is essential for activity of the corresponding biosynthetic enzymes – phosphopantetheinylation of the synthases’ carrier protein domains. 

We have a discovered a phosphodiesterase enzyme that can hydrolyze and remove this post-translational modification, which may allow the organism to either negatively regulate antibiotic production and/or to rescue biosynthetic activity from a stalled synthase.