Guanine nucleotides guanosine 5′-diphosphate 3′-diphosphate and GTP co-operatively regulate the production of an antibiotic bacilysin in Bacillus subtilis

We found that a polycistronic operon (ywfBCDEFG) and a monocistronic gene (ywfH) are required for the biosynthesis of bacilysin in Bacillus subtilis. The disruption of these genes by plasmid integration caused loss of the ability to produce bacilysin, accompanied by a lack of bacilysin synthetase activity in the crude extract. We investigated the regulatory mechanism for bacilysin biosynthesis using the transcriptional lacZ fusion system. The transcription of these genes was found to be induced at the transition from exponential to stationary phase. Induction of transcription was accelerated by depleting a required amino acid, which was done by transferring the wild-type (rel(+)) cells to an amino acid-limited medium. In contrast, no enhancement of the gene expression was detected in relA mutant cells. In wild-type (rel(+)) cells, a forced reduction of intracellular GTP, brought about by addition of decoyinine, which is a GMP synthetase inhibitor, enhanced the expression of both the ywfBCDEFG operon and the ywfH gene, resulting in a 2.5-fold increase in bacilysin production. Disruption of the codY gene, which regulates stationary phase genes by detecting the level of GTP, also induced transcription of these genes. In contrast, the expression of ywfBCDEFG in relA cells was not activated either by decoyinine addition or codY disruption, although the expression of ywfH was induced. Moreover, the codY disruption resulted in an increase of bacilysin production only in rel(+) cells. These results indicate that guanosine 5'-diphosphate 3'-diphosphate (ppGpp) plays a crucial role in transcription of the ywfBCDEFG operon and that the transcription of these genes are dependent upon the level of intracellular GTP which is transmitted as a signal via the CodY-mediated repression system. We propose that, unlike antibiotic production in Streptomyces spp., bacilysin production in B. subtilis is controlled by a dual regulation system composed of the guanine nucleotides ppGpp and GTP.