OSMAC Strategy: A promising way to explore microbial cyclic peptides.

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Natural Product Chemistry
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Microbial secondary metabolites are crucial for novel drug development.
• Conventional culture methods leave many biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) unexpressed, limiting metabolite discovery.
• Microbial cyclic peptides possess unique structures and biological functions, making them valuable drug leads.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the progress of the
• One Strain Many Compounds
• (OSMAC) strategy in mining novel microbial compounds.
• To highlight the application of OSMAC in discovering microbial cyclic peptides.
• To provide insights for future exploration of novel active cyclic peptides.

Main Methods:

• The OSMAC strategy involves modifying microbial culture conditions to induce the expression of silent BGCs.
• This review analyzes studies employing the OSMAC strategy for secondary metabolite discovery.
• Focus is placed on the identification and characterization of microbial cyclic peptides.

Main Results:

• The OSMAC strategy has proven effective in mining numerous novel secondary metabolites.
• A significant number of new cyclic peptides have been identified using this method.
• This work details the discovery of 284 microbial cyclic peptides from 63 endophytic strains.

Conclusions:

• The OSMAC strategy is a powerful tool for uncovering cryptic BGCs and discovering novel cyclic peptides.
• This approach significantly expands the repertoire of known microbial cyclic peptides.
• Further exploration using OSMAC holds great promise for identifying new drug candidates.