, 2011) (Fig. 4). Compared with other angucyclinone antibiotics mentioned previously, kiamycin has two distinctive characteristics, 6a-OH and epoxy moiety. A plausible pathway was that oxidoreductases (ang 5 and ang 18) were in charge of synthesis of 6a-OH and epoxy structure, respectively (Fig. 4). In our study, we have used a genome scanning method to discover metabolic loci. The basis of this approach is that the genes required for secondary metabolites

biosynthesis are typically clustered together in a streptomycete chromosome (Martín & Liras, 1989; Zazopoulos et al., 2003). Genomic sequence analysis reveals the most diverse assemblage of biosynthetic modules involved in producing polyketides and nonribosomal peptides in the Streptomyces. This work provides LDK378 in vitro powerful evidence for discovering cryptic metabolic Kinase Inhibitor high throughput screening potential and directing traditional natural product research based on genome sequence. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31000037), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-JC201), CAS International Innovation Partnership Program: Typical Environmental Process and Effects on Resources in Coastal Zone Area, Outstanding Young Scholar Fellowship of Shandong Province (JQ200914), the Natural

Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2009EQ004), the Foundation of the Key Laboratory of Marine Bioactive Substance and Modern Analytical Techniques, SOA (MBSMAT-2010-07), and Public Science and Technology Research Funds Projects of Ocean Florfenicol (200905021-3). H. Zhang and H. Wang contributed equally to this work. “
“Clostridium difficile is the major cause of nosocomial diarrhoea. Several detection methods are available for

the laboratory diagnosis of C. difficile, but these vary in terms of sensitivity and specificity. In this study, we compared the performance of three following laboratory tests to detect C. difficile: in-house real-time PCR aiming for toxin B gene (tcdB), EIA for detection of toxins A and B (Premier Toxins A & B) and C. difficile culture in selective medium (bioMerieux). Our results were grouped into three categories as follows: (1) C. difficile-associated diarrhoea (CDAD); (2) asymptomatic carriers; and (3) negative results. Among the 113 patients included in the study, 9 (8.0%) were classified as CDAD, 19 (16.8%) were asymptomatic carriers, 76 (67.2%) had negative results and 9 (8.0%) could not be categorized (positive test for C. difficile toxins only). PCR was found to be the most sensitive diagnostic test in our study, with the potential to be used as a screening method for C. difficile colonization/CDAD. Diagnosis of CDAD would be better performed by a combination of PCR and EIA tests. “
“To better understand the effect of temperature on mycotoxin biosynthesis, RNA-Seq technology was used to profile the Aspergillus flavus transcriptome under different temperature conditions.