Deciphering Regulatory Mechanisms in M. xanthus Using Isotopic Ratio Outlier Analysis (IROA) for Metabolome-wide Quantitation
Myxobacteria are an important source of natural products often exhibiting potent biological activity and unusual modes-of-action [1]. Their genomes - among the largest in prokaryotes - harbour intriguing numbers of secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways, whereas the small-molecule products for many of these have yet to be discovered [2]. Myxobacteria also devote an exceptionally high proportion of their genetic capacity to regulation, as exemplified by the genome of the model strain Myxococcus xanthus DK1622. Deciphering complex myxobacterial regulatory networks improves our ability to manipulate natural product yields and can facilitate the discovery of novel metabolites. Here, we present a comprehensive metabolomics study using comparative LC-hrMS profiling and IROA to quantify small-molecule readouts in response to induced overexpression of a transcriptional antiterminator in DK1622.
