Summary: This Editorial discusses the growing global problem of antimicrobial resistance, and new and emerging opportunities for developing real-world solutions, involving both basic science and clini...

The MtrAB two-component system is a master regulator of antibiotic biosynthesis in Streptomyces species. MtrA is also required for sporulation under certain growth conditions, which means that on some...

Molecular networking is a computational mass spectrometry technique used to visualize and connect tandem mass spectra from putatively related molecules to reveal structural relationships. Despite thei...

Microscopic adventures await – visit the Microbe Zoo at Norwich Science Festival! Once inside the ‘zoo’, you’ll be transported into a world usually invisible to the naked eye – one inhabited by bacter...

Granaticins, a class of bioactive benzoisochromanequinones (BIQs), are natural blue pigments with biological activities, including antibacterial prope…

One of the characteristics of actinomycetes, especially streptomycetes, is the high GC content in their genome, which often leads to the failure of heterologous expression in E. coli, and thus hinders...

Streptomyces venezuelae requires MreB1-dependent dispersed peptidoglycan cell wall synthesis and DivIVA-mediated polar cell wall synthesis during its rapid exploratory growth phase.

A plug-and-play system fine-tunes multiple targets simultaneously for secondary metabolite production in Streptomyces.

But turning what they find into drugs isn’t so easy

Nature Communications - In this work, authors utilise a prefractionation natural product extract screening platform, which uncovers coniotins, lipopeptaibiotics with broad antifungal activity and a...

An exciting opportunity for an Independent Fellowship in Plant-Associated Microbial Interactions has arisen at the John Innes Centre. To read the full job description for this role…

mBio covers the enormity of the interconnected microbial world: from symbiosis to pathogenesis, energy acquisition and conversion, climate change, geologic change, food and drug production, and even ...

CryoEM, genetic, and cell biological analyses reveal that the conserved membrane protein CisA mediates membrane recruitment of contractile injection systems Streptomyces coelicolor, enabling their act...

Trends across research councils prompt warning that system is “overstretched or broken”

Embleya is a genus within the family Streptomycetaceae, a group of actinobacteria with outstanding capacity for production of specialised metabolites and a strikingly complex life cycle. In this work, we sequenced the complete genome of the new species Embleya australiensis MST-11070 and validated the assembly using optical mapping. The genome of E. australiensis MST-11070 consists of a 7.1 Mb linear chromosome and three additional replicons, including a 4.2 Mb linear replicon, EEC1, significantly larger than all previously described secondary replicons from bacteria. EEC1 is typified by its similar composition to the chromosome in terms of GC-content, codon usage and gene functions. It also carries terminal inverted repeats identical to the chromosome. EEC1 is enriched in biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), including the only copy of the BGCs for the spore pigment and the surfactant peptide SapB, metabolites essential for the organism's lifecycle. EEC1 contains an origin of replication with at least some chromosomal properties, and its replication is likely to depend on functions provided by chromosomally located genes. Further comparison of Embleya spp. genomes suggests that EEC1-like replicons are conserved across the genus, in contrast to other known large linear extrachromosomal replicons (megaplasmids) in the order. EEC1 is thus a hallmark of the Embleya genus and is central to its evolution within the Streptomycetaceae family. We propose EEC1 as a secondary chromosome, distinct from previously described secondary chromosomes that utilise plasmid-like replication mechanisms (chromids) and the largest secondary replicon reported in bacteria, to date. ### Competing Interest Statement Ernest Lacey is a Founder, Board Member, and the Managing Director of Microbial Screening Technology Pty. Ltd. The authors declare no competing financial interests. Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, https://ror.org/00cwqg982, BB/P021506/1, BBS/E/J/000PR9790, BB/X01097X/1, BB/M011216/1 Novo Nordisk Foundation, https://ror.org/04txyc737, NNF22OC0078997