Microbial degradation of validamycin A by Flavobacterium saccharophilum. Enzymatic cleavage of C-N linkage in validoxylamine A.

The enzymatic cleavage of C-N linkage in the degradation of validamycin A by Flavobacterium saccharophilum was examined using N-p-nitrophenyl derivatives of validamine and valienamine as synthetic model substrates for validoxylamine A. Incubation of N-p-nitrophenylvalidamine with the membrane fraction from the organism led to formation of N-p-nitrophenyl-3-ketovalidamine, and succeeding cleavage of C-N linkage. As the products of the cleavage step, one was identified as p-nitroaniline and another keto compound could not be purified enough because of its instability. However, on the basis of its hydrogenation products, the structure of the keto compound could be established as 5D-(5/6)-5-C-(hydroxy-methyl)-2,6-dihydroxy-2-cyclohexen-1-one. The same experiment was carried out with N-p-nitrophenylvalienamine. In this case, N-p-nitrophenyl-3-ketovalienamine could be isolated as an intermediate but the desired keto compound from the cleavage step could not be isolated because of its instability. The participation of two enzymes, that is, a dehydrogenase and a C-N lyase on the cleavage of C-N linkage was assured, and moreover, the analysis of its products, together with those of the previous studies allow us to propose a degradation pathway of validamycin A by Flavobacterium saccharophilum.