Leveraging a large microbial strain collection for natural product discovery

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Natural Product Chemistry
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Natural products are vital for novel chemistry, drug leads, and biological tools.
• Microbial genome sequencing reveals many uncharacterized biosynthetic gene clusters, indicating untapped potential.
• Current natural product discovery doesn't fully represent microbial biosynthetic capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report on an expanded microbial strain collection at The Scripps Research Institute.
• To present structure-centric and function-centric approaches for natural product discovery.
• To address challenges and opportunities in leveraging large microbial collections.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing advanced genome sequencing, bioinformatics, and high-throughput screening.
• Employing complementary structure-centric and function-centric discovery strategies.
• Leveraging a large and diverse microbial strain collection.

Main Results:

• Discovery of alternative producers for known natural products with improved characteristics.
• Identification of novel analogs of privileged scaffolds.
• Uncovering novel natural products and new biological activities of known and novel compounds.

Conclusions:

• Expanded microbial strain collections are crucial for natural product discovery.
• Integrated approaches enhance the identification of novel molecules and activities.
• This resource facilitates the discovery of new natural products for diverse applications.