Amino acids activated by fengycin synthetase FenE

Fengycin is a lipopeptidic antibiotic produced non-ribosomally by Bacillus subtilis F29-3. Synthesis of this antibiotic requires five fengycin synthetases encoded by fenC, fenD, fenE, fenA, and fenB. In this study, we analyze the functions of the enzyme encoded by fenE, which contains two amino acid activation modules, FenE1 and FenE2. ATP-PP_i exchange assay revealed that FenE1 activates L-Glu and FenE2 activates L-Ala, L-Val, and L-2-aminobutyric acid, indicating that FenE activates the fifth and the sixth amino acids in fengycin. Furthermore, L-Val is a better substrate than L-Ala for FenE2 in vitro, explaining why B. subtilis F29-3 normally produces twice as much of fengycin B than fengycin A, which contains D-Val and D-Ala at the sixth amino acid position, respectively. Results presented herein suggest that fengycin synthetase genes and amino acids in fengycin are colinear.