中文摘要：

Development and differentiation is an important and leading research field in modern biology. Streptomyces has a complicated life cycle of morphological differentiation including the spore germination, aerial mycelium and spore formation. Each developmental stage has a distinguished morphological feature which greatly facilitates the identification of developmental mutants, the complementary cloning and the spatial and temporal expression of the genes involved in differentiation. This characteristic of Streptomyces is comparatively superior to other pro-karyotic bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Bacillus sub-tilis and Myxococcus xanthus. Moreover, Streptomyces also possesses a complicated physiological differentiation in which it produces a wide variety of secondary metabolites (more than half of the 12 000 or so known antibiotics), including many important antibiotics used in medi-