Interestingly, the monooxygenase GS-C co-expressed with its corresponding reductase GS-D in the cluster has better activity for the biosynthesis of Tyrian purple compared with the previously reported monooxygenase from Methylophaga aminisulfidivorans (MaFMO) or Streptomyces cattleya cytochrome P450 enzyme (CYP102G4). To further explore the underlying mechanism of the selectivity, we explored the intermediates in this indole biodegradation pathway using liquid chromatography electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS), which indicated that the indole biodegradation pathway in Providencia rettgeri is the catechol pathway. The heterologous expression of the indole degradation gene cluster in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) and in vitro enzymatic reaction demonstrated that the indole biodegradation gene cluster may contribute to selectively biosynthesizing Tyrian purple. An indole degradation gene cluster for indole metabolism was identified from this GS-2 strain. This GS-2 strain was then identified as Providencia rettgeri based on bacterial genome sequencing analysis. In this study, we found Tyrian purple can be selectively produced by a bacterial strain GS-2 when fed with 6-bromotryptophan in the presence of tryptophan. Tyrian purple, mainly composed of 6, 6′-dibromoindigo, is a precious dye extracted from sea snails.

4Center for Synthetic Biochemistry, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.

3CAS Key Laboratory of Quantitative Engineering Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.2Shenzhen Key Laboratory for the Intelligent Microbial Manufacturing of Medicines, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.

1School of Life Sciences, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, China.

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