Two more pieces of the colibactin genotoxin puzzle from Escherichia coli show incorporation of an unusual 1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid moiety

Colibactin represents a structurally undefined class of bacterial genotoxin inducing DNA damage and genomic instability in mammalian cells, thus promoting tumour development and exacerbating lymphopenia in animal models. The colibactin biosynthetic gene cluster (clb) has been known for ten years and it encodes a hybrid nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS)/polyketide synthase (PKS) assembly line. Nevertheless, the final chemical product(s) remain unknown. Previously, we and others reported several colibactin pathway-related metabolites including N-myristoyl-D-asparagine (1) as part of a prodrug precursor that is cleaved from the putative precolibactin to form active colibactin by the peptidase ClbP. Herein, we report two new colibactin pathway-related metabolites (2 and 3) isolated from a clbP mutant of the probiotic E. coli Nissle 1917 strain. Their structures were established by HRMS and NMR. Compound 2 shows an additional 4-aminopenatanoic acid moiety with respect to 1, while 3 is characterized by the presence of an unusual 7-methyl-4-azaspiro[2.4] hept-6-en-5-one residue. Moreover, we propose the biosynthetic pathway towards both intermediates on the basis of extensive gene inactivation and feeding experiments. The identification of 2 and 3 provides further insight into colibactin biosynthesis including the involvement and formation of a rare 1-aminocyclopropanecarboxylic acid unit. Thus, our work establishes additional steps of the pathway forming the bacterial genotoxin colibactin.