Natural product discovery through microbial genome mining

Emma Kenshole; Marion Herisse; Michael Michael; Sacha J Pidot

doi:10.1016/j.cbpa.2020.07.010

Natural product discovery through microbial genome mining

Curr Opin Chem Biol. 2021 Feb:60:47-54. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2020.07.010. Epub 2020 Aug 24.

Authors

Emma Kenshole¹, Marion Herisse¹, Michael Michael¹, Sacha J Pidot²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 3000.
² Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 3000. Electronic address: sacha.pidot@unimelb.edu.au.

PMID: 32853968
DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2020.07.010

Abstract

The advent of the genomic era has opened up enormous possibilities for the discovery of new natural products. Also known as specialized metabolites, these compounds produced by bacteria, fungi, and plants have long been sought for their bioactive properties. Innovations in both DNA sequencing technologies and bioinformatics now allow the wealth of sequence data to be mined at both the genome and metagenome levels for new specialized metabolites. However, a key problem that remains is rapidly and efficiently linking these identified genes to their corresponding compounds. Within this review, we provide specific examples of studies that have used the power of genomic or metagenomic data to overcome these problems and identify new small molecules and their biosynthetic pathways.

Keywords: Genome mining; Genomics; Metagenomics; Specialized metabolite.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Biological Products* / metabolism
Data Mining / methods*
Drug Discovery / methods*
Genome, Microbial / genetics*

Substances

Biological Products