Who Needs Neighbors? Is a Stand-Alone Gene in Responsible for Production of Gibepyrones and Prolipyrone B.

Genome sequencing of the genus has revealed a great capacity for discovery of new natural products of potential economical and therapeutic importance. Several of these are unknown. In this study, we investigated the product of the gene in , which was recently linked to gibepyrones in . Genomic analyses showed that constitutes a stand-alone gene in and related species. Overexpression of resulted in production of gibepyrones A, B, D, G and prolipyrone B, which could not be detected in the wild type strain. Our results suggest that produces the entry compound gibepyrone A, which is subsequently oxidized by one or several non-clustering cytochrome P450 monooxygenases ending with prolipyrone B.