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A guide to genome mining and genetic manipulation of biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces
Heonjun Jeong, YeonU Choe, Jiyoon Nam, Yeon Hee Ban
J. Microbiol. 2025;63(4):e2409026.   Published online April 29, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71150/jm.2409026
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AbstractAbstract PDF

Streptomyces are a crucial source of bioactive secondary metabolites with significant clinical applications. Recent studies of bacterial and metagenome-assembled genomes have revealed that Streptomyces harbors a substantial number of uncharacterized silent secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). These BGCs represent a vast diversity of biosynthetic pathways for natural product synthesis, indicating significant untapped potential for discovering new metabolites. To exploit this potential, genome mining using comprehensive strategies that leverage extensive genomic databases can be conducted. By linking BGCs to their encoded products and integrating genetic manipulation techniques, researchers can greatly enhance the identification of new secondary metabolites with therapeutic relevance. In this context, we present a step-by-step guide for using the antiSMASH pipeline to identify secondary metabolite-coding BGCs within the complete genome of a novel Streptomyces strain. This protocol also outlines gene manipulation methods that can be applied to Streptomyces to activate cryptic clusters of interest and validate the functions of biosynthetic genes. By following these guidelines, researchers can pave the way for discovering and characterizing valuable natural products.

Journal Article
A computationally simplistic poly-phasic approach to explore microbial communities from the Yucatan aquifer as a potential sources of novel natural products
Marfil-Santana Miguel David , O’Connor-Sánchez Aileen , Ramírez-Prado Jorge Humberto , De los Santos-Briones Cesar , López- Aguiar , Lluvia Korynthia , Rojas-Herrera Rafael , Lago-Lestón Asunción , Prieto-Davó Alejandra
J. Microbiol. 2016;54(11):774-781.   Published online October 29, 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-016-6092-x
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AbstractAbstract
The need for new antibiotics has sparked a search for the microbes that might potentially produce them. Current sequencing technologies allow us to explore the biotechnological potential of microbial communities in diverse environments without the need for cultivation, benefitting natural product discovery in diverse ways. A relatively recent method to search for the possible production of novel compounds includes studying the diverse genes belonging to polyketide synthase pathways (PKS), as these complex enzymes are an important source of novel therapeutics. In order to explore the biotechnological potential of the microbial community from the largest underground aquifer in the world located in the Yucatan, we used a polyphasic approach in which a simple, non-computationally intensive method was coupled with direct amplification of environmental DNA to assess the diversity and novelty of PKS type I ketosynthase (KS) domains. Our results suggest that the bioinformatic method proposed can indeed be used to assess the novelty of KS enzymes; nevertheless, this in silico study did not identify some of the KS diversity due to primer bias and stringency criteria outlined by the metagenomics pipeline. Therefore, additionally implementing a method involving the direct cloning of KS domains enhanced our results. Compared to other freshwater environments, the aquifer was characterized by considerably less diversity in relation to known ketosynthase domains; however, the metagenome included a family of KS type I domains phylogenetically related, but not identical, to those found in the curamycin pathway, as well as an outstanding number of thiolases. Over all, this first look into the microbial community found in this large Yucatan aquifer and other fresh water free living microbial communities highlights the potential of these previously overlooked environments as a source of novel natural products.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by  
  • Biosynthetic potential of the sediment microbial subcommunities of an unexplored karst ecosystem and its ecological implications
    Pablo Suárez‐Moo, Alejandra Prieto‐Davó
    MicrobiologyOpen.2024;[Epub]     CrossRef
  • Changes in the sediment microbial community structure of coastal and inland sinkholes of a karst ecosystem from the Yucatan peninsula
    Pablo Suárez-Moo, Claudia A. Remes-Rodríguez, Norma A. Márquez-Velázquez, Luisa I. Falcón, José Q. García-Maldonado, Alejandra Prieto-Davó
    Scientific Reports.2022;[Epub]     CrossRef
  • Insights into the Chemical Diversity of Selected Fungi from the Tza Itzá Cenote of the Yucatan Peninsula
    Carlos A. Fajardo-Hernández, Firoz Shah Tuglak Khan, Laura Flores-Bocanegra, Alejandra Prieto-Davó, Baojie Wan, Rui Ma, Mallique Qader, Rodrigo Villanueva-Silva, Anahí Martínez-Cárdenas, Marian A. López-Lobato, Shabnam Hematian, Scott G. Franzblau, Huzefa
    ACS Omega.2022; 7(14): 12171.     CrossRef

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