Streptomyces contains 30–40 secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters; however, researchers can normally detect only a fraction of these secondary metabolites from a single strain under pure culture conditions.1 This suggests that the majority of these gene clusters are silent or are expressed below detectable levels. The development of heterologous expression techniques has enabled us to express such genes in alternative hosts, but the production level of each compound in heterologous hosts is often low and does not yield a sufficient level of production. To improve the productivity of heterologously expressed secondary metabolites, new methods that activate the silent or poorly expressed secondary metabolite genes are required.

In nature, diverse groups of microorganisms form complex microbial communities. Hence, it is generally believed that co-culture is a more efficient method for secondary metabolite production than a pure culture because two different microorganisms in the same culture will better mimic the natural environment in which microorganisms continuously interact with each other.2

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