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Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Mass Spectrometry-Guided Genome Mining as a Tool to Uncover Novel Natural Products
Published on: March 12, 2020
Recent advances in awakening silent biosynthetic gene clusters and linking orphan clusters to natural products in
Yi-Ming Chiang1, Shu-Lin Chang, Berl R Oakley
1Graduate Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan 71710, Taiwan, ROC.
Abstract:
Secondary metabolites from microorganisms have a broad spectrum of applications, particularly in therapeutics. The growing number of sequenced microbial genomes has revealed a remarkably large number of natural product biosynthetic clusters for which the products are still unknown. These cryptic clusters are potentially a treasure house of medically useful compounds. The recent development of new methodologies has made it possible to begin unlock this treasure house, to discover new natural products and to determine their biosynthesis pathways. This review will highlight some of the most recent strategies to activate silent biosynthetic gene clusters and to elucidate their corresponding products and pathways.
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