Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026

From a Natural Product to Its Biosynthetic Gene Cluster: A Demonstration Using Polyketomycin from Streptomyces diastatochromogenes Tü6028
Published on: January 13, 2017
Diversifying microbial natural products for drug discovery
V Knight1, J-J Sanglier, D DiTullio
1Cetek Corporation, 260 Cedar Hill St., Marlborough, MA 01752, USA.
Abstract:
Historically, nature has provided the source for the majority of the drugs in use today. More than 20,000 microbial secondary metabolites have been described, but only a small percentage of these have been carried forward as natural product drugs. Natural products are in tough competition with large chemical libraries and with combinatorial chemistries. Hence, each step of a natural product program has to be more efficient than ever, starting from the collection of environmental samples and the selection of strains, to metabolic expression, genetic exploitation, sample preparation and chemical dereplication. This review will focus on approaches for diversifying microbial natural product strains and extract libraries, while decreasing genetic and chemical redundancy.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Discovery: Overview
Microorganisms in Medicine and Therapeutics
Chemical Agents for Microbial Control
Microbial Bioremediation of Pesticides
Production of Antibiotics
iChip

