Manipulation of the physiology of clavulanic acid production in Streptomyces clavuligerus

This paper reports a novel use of cluster analysis for the identification of intermediary metabolites that are produced at rates closely correlated with theme of antibiotic biosynthesis. This information was used to devise culture feeds resulting in enhanced production of clavulanic acid, an antibiotic of current worldwide commercial interest. The feeding strategies apparently alleviated a rate-limiting supply of the C-3 precursor of clavulanic acid. C-3 limitation may be a consequence of unusual nitrogen and carbon metabolism in Streptomyces clavuligerus. This approach has potential as a generic method for influencing biosynthetic pathway fluxes using feeds without knowledge of the biosynthetic pathway.