Polyketide Fermentations

Polyketides branch off from central metabolism and raises the obvious question: How other (primary) lipid pathways compete with the secondary metabolism of antibiotic and growth regulator biosynthesis?

A polyketide fermentation analyzed by beòcarta identified competing lipid pathways to correlate precisely with the decline of productivity and focused attention on novel targets for strain improvement.

The same process revealed a proximal cause of the regular and highly predictable end of the phase of most rapid growth (the depletion of some preformed amino acids supplied by the growth medium) that triggered the onset of secondary metabolism.