Biotechnological Production of the Recombinant Two-Component Lantibiotic Lichenicidin in the Bacterial Expression System

Lantibiotics are a family of bacterial antimicrobial peptides synthesized by ribosomes that undergo post-translational modification to form lanthionine (Lan) and methyllanthionine (MeLan) residues. Lantibiotics are considered promising agents for combating antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. This paper presents a biotechnological method for obtaining two components of the lantibiotic lichenicidin from Bacillus licheniformis B-511 – Lchα and Lchβ. A system has been developed that allows co-expression of the lchA1 or lchA2 genes, encoding the precursors of the α- or β-components, respectively, with the lchM1 or lchM2 genes of the modifying enzymes LchM1 and LchM2 in Escherichia coli cells. The developed system of heterologous expression and purification made it possible to obtain, with high yield, post-translationally modified recombinant Lchβ, completely identical to the natural peptide in structure and biological activity.