Pseudomonas spp. are prolific producers of natural products from many structural classes. Here we show that the soil bacterium Pseudomonas protegens Pf-5 is capable of producing trace levels of the triazine natural product toxoflavin (1) under microaerobic conditions. We evaluated toxoflavin production by derivatives of Pf-5 with deletions in specific biosynthesis genes, which led us to propose a revised biosynthetic pathway for toxoflavin that shares the first two steps with riboflavin biosynthesis. We also report that toxM, which is not present in the well-characterized cluster of Burkholderia glumae, encodes a monooxygenase that degrades toxoflavin. The toxoflavin degradation product of ToxM is identical to that of TflA, the toxoflavin lyase from Paenibacillus polymyxa. Toxoflavin production by P. protegens causes inhibition of several plant-pathogenic bacteria, and introduction of toxM into the toxoflavin-sensitive strain Pseudomonas syringae DC3000 results in resistance to toxoflavin.
Keywords: biocontrol; natural products; secondary metabolism; triazine.
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