[Strategies on the construction of high-quality microbial natural product library--a review]

The microbial secondary metabolites are always the main source of the natural drugs. The historical paradigm of the deep ocean as a biological 'desert' has shifted to one of a 'rainforest' owing to the isolation of many novel microbes and their associated bioactive compounds. A high quality microbial and its natural product library are crucial for successful drug and other screenings. However, how to build up the library efficiently is still faced with many bottlenecks. To overcome the difficulties and limitations, we reviewed the following strategies: (1) diversifying microbial sources and dereplication; (2) diversifying gene sources and dereplication; (3) diversifying microbial metabolite sources and dereplication; (4) novel methods and technologies for bioactive secondary metabolites, especially the high-throughput synergy screening for multi-target drugs. Bioactive compounds isolated using the above chemical microbiology strategies have not only shown importance in biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications but also increased our understanding of the diversity of microbe, ecosystem functions and the exploitable biology.