TY - JOUR TI - Silencing cryptic specialized metabolism in Streptomyces by the nucleoid-associated protein Lsr2 AU - Gehrke, Emma J AU - Zhang, Xiafei AU - Pimentel-Elardo, Sheila M AU - Johnson, Andrew R AU - Rees, Christiaan A AU - Jones, Stephanie E AU - Hindra AU - Gehrke, Sebastian S AU - Turvey, Sonya AU - Boursalie, Suzanne AU - Hill, Jane E AU - Carlson, Erin E AU - Nodwell, Justin R AU - Elliot, Marie A A2 - Storz, Gisela A2 - Laub, Michael T A2 - Traxler, Matthew F VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/06/19 SP - e47691 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e47691 DO - 10.7554/eLife.47691 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47691 AB - Lsr2 is a nucleoid-associated protein conserved throughout the actinobacteria, including the antibiotic-producing Streptomyces. Streptomyces species encode paralogous Lsr2 proteins (Lsr2 and Lsr2-like, or LsrL), and we show here that of the two, Lsr2 has greater functional significance. We found that Lsr2 binds AT-rich sequences throughout the chromosome, and broadly represses gene expression. Strikingly, specialized metabolic clusters were over-represented amongst its targets, and the cryptic nature of many of these clusters appears to stem from Lsr2-mediated repression. Manipulating Lsr2 activity in model species and uncharacterized isolates resulted in the production of new metabolites not seen in wild type strains. Our results suggest that the transcriptional silencing of biosynthetic clusters by Lsr2 may protect Streptomyces from the inappropriate expression of specialized metabolites, and provide global control over Streptomyces’ arsenal of signaling and antagonistic compounds. KW - Streptomyces KW - nucleoid-associated protein KW - specialized metabolism KW - DNA-binding protein KW - repressor KW - antibiotics JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -