[Metabolism of phosphate-limited Streptomyces cultures. III. The ambivalent effect of phosphates in nourseothricin-producing cultures of Streptomyces noursei JA 3890b].

A common condition in the evolution of organisms and their metabolism seems to be a latent lack of available phosphate in the natural environment. Accordingly, the phosphate dependent metabolisms of the soil-living streptomycetes should be stamped by lack of phosphate, too. The biosynthesis of the streptothricin antibiotic nourseothricin by Streptomyces noursei 3890b is initiated by limitation of soluble phosphate in the fermentation medium. At the other side is shown that a certain rate of feeding of phosphate during the fermentation increases the nourseothricin biosynthesis. An ambivalente role of phosphate on the secondary metabolite biosynthesis is stated. The limitation of phosphate leads to a special physiological state of the producer, characterized by secondary product formation and dephosphorylating activities in cells. This state is temporally stabilized by the presence of a sufficient phosphate supply, realized by enzymatic hydrolysis of complex phosphate-containing substrates or by a direct feeding of inorganic phosphate to the fermentations. The occurrence of different physiological states in respect to the phosphate-dependent metabolism is described by S-shaped functions of the relationship between specific growth rate and the phosphate concentration in the medium. The special behaviour of Streptomyces noursei cells at phosphate limitation is discussed to be the result of the dephosphorylating activities in cells, hydrolyzing phosphoester-bonds of regulatory metabolites as well as energy-rich compounds.