Department of Research Infrastructures for Marine Biological Resources, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale, Naples, Italy.
Department of Integrative Marine Ecology, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale, Naples, Italy.
Open Biol. 2023 Feb;13(2):220309. doi: 10.1098/rsob.220309. Epub 2023 Feb 1.
Diatoms represent one of the most abundant groups of microalgae in the ocean and are responsible for approximately 20% of photosynthetically fixed CO on Earth. Due to their complex evolutionary history and ability to adapt to different environments, diatoms are endowed with striking molecular biodiversity and unique metabolic activities. Their high growth rate and the possibility to optimize their biomass make them very promising 'biofactories' for biotechnological applications. Among bioactive compounds, diatoms can produce ovothiols, histidine-derivatives, endowed with unique antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and occurring in many marine invertebrates, bacteria and pathogenic protozoa. However, the functional role of ovothiols biosynthesis in organisms remains almost unexplored. In this work, we have characterized the thiol fraction of , providing the first evidence of the presence of ovothiol B in pennate diatoms. We have used to overexpress the 5-histidylcysteine sulfoxide synthase , the gene encoding the key enzyme involved in ovothiol biosynthesis and we have discovered that OvoA localizes in the mitochondria, a finding that uncovers new concepts in cellular redox biochemistry. We have also obtained engineered biolistic clones that can produce higher amount of ovothiol B compared to wild-type cells, suggesting a new strategy for the eco-sustainable production of these molecules.
硅藻是海洋中最丰富的微藻群体之一，约占地球上光合作用固定 CO2 的 20%。由于其复杂的进化历史和适应不同环境的能力，硅藻具有引人注目的分子生物多样性和独特的代谢活性。它们的高增长率和优化生物质的可能性使它们成为非常有前途的生物技术应用“生物工厂”。在生物活性化合物中，硅藻可以产生卵硫醇、组氨酸衍生物，具有独特的抗氧化和抗炎特性，存在于许多海洋无脊椎动物、细菌和致病原生动物中。然而，卵硫醇生物合成在生物体中的功能作用几乎未被探索。在这项工作中，我们对进行了巯基部分的表征，首次提供了在羽纹硅藻中存在卵硫醇 B 的证据。我们使用 来过表达 5-组氨酰半胱氨酸亚砜合酶，即参与卵硫醇生物合成的关键酶的基因，我们发现 OvoA 定位于线粒体中，这一发现揭示了细胞氧化还原生物化学的新概念。我们还获得了工程化的生物弹道克隆，与野生型细胞相比，它们可以产生更高量的卵硫醇 B，这为这些分子的生态可持续生产提供了一种新策略。
