How can actinomycete taxonomy and natural product research work together? The Sanofi-Aventis approach

Abstract

The role of taxonomy in natural product research can be estimated in different ways. As the biological active secondary metabolite is in the focus, different companies have developed their own philosophy, as Sanofi-Aventis has done. Surveying the patent literature and journals for the description of natural products, for example, the Journal of Antibiotics, it is found that most actinomycetes reported to produce biological active compounds are described only to the genus level1 or with an invalid taxonomic name. Many of them belong to novel species, as shown in our studies of members of the genus Actinoplanes during a research program for new lantibiotics2 which resulted in the validation of Actinoplanes liguriensis and A. teichnomyceticus which have been invalidly published by Parenti and co-workers. The characterisation and description of the antibiotic-producing actinomycetes at Sanofi-Aventis or its predecessors has a long history going back to the publication of three novel species of the genus Streptomyces that produce moenomycin6, an antibiotic compound which is still in fermentative production today.