Prediction of natural product bioactivity from BGC sequence to guide genome mining efforts

Genome mining, or the process of performing bioinformatic analysis on genomic data to identify promising biosynthetic potential, plays an important role in natural product discovery. One challenge in genome mining is choosing a strategy to prioritize which biosynthetic gene cluster to study. Recently, several tools have emerged that enable prediction of bioactivity from biosynthetic gene clusters. These tools enable prioritization of biosynthetic gene clusters and genomes by their likelihood of producing compounds with bioactivities that are useful in drug discovery, such as antibacterial activity. In this chapter, we provide a protocol and guidelines for using one of these tools.