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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 May 29.
Published in final edited form as: Annu Rev Biochem. 2021 Apr 13;90:763–788. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-081420-102432

Figure 7.

Figure 7

Overview of exogenous activation. Heterologous approaches use a surrogate organism for the production of secondary metabolites from a BGC of interest, usually targeted based on the predicted novelty or utility of the putative natural product. The general steps involved are as follows: ❶ the BGC is identified and assembled into a mobile, transferable vector; ❷ the regulatory elements in the BGC are refactored to suit the surrogate producer; ❸ the mobile, refactored BGC is cloned and expressed in the surrogate host; and ❹ the resultant natural products are identified and characterized. Abbreviation: BGC, biosynthetic gene cluster.