Structure and Biosynthesis of Hectoramide B, a Linear Depsipeptide from Marine Cyanobacterium JHB Discovered via Coculture with .

The tropical marine cyanobacterium JHB is a prolific source of secondary metabolites with potential biomedical utility. Previous studies on this strain led to the discovery of several novel compounds such as hectochlorins and jamaicamides. However, bioinformatic analyses of its genome indicate the presence of numerous cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters that have yet to be characterized. To potentially stimulate the production of novel compounds from this strain, it was cocultured with . From this experiment, we observed the increased production of a new compound that we characterize here as hectoramide B. Bioinformatic analysis of the JHB genome enabled the identification of a putative biosynthetic gene cluster responsible for hectoramide B biosynthesis. This work demonstrates that coculture competition experiments can be a valuable method to facilitate the discovery of novel natural products from cyanobacteria.