Microorganisms have provided abundant sources of natural products which have been developed as commercial products for human medicine, animal health, and plant crop protection. Back in 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered a naturally occurring antibacterial agent produced by the fungi Penicillium notatum, named penicillin, which began the microbial drug era. In the 1940s, Waksman’s systematic mining of antimicrobial agents produced by soil actinomycetes, leading to the discovery of streptomycin, actinomycin, and streptothricin, ushered in the golden age of antibiotic discovery. Nowadays, microbial natural products still have played a pivotal role in drug discovery and development. However, the presentation of ever-increasing pathogenic bacterial resistance, the emergence of new infectious viruses, and the lack of novel antimicrobial and antiviral agents have become a worrisome problem. Therefore, how to discover more natural products with new structures and novel mechanisms of action is an urgent problem to be solved now.
Admittedly, traditional isolation and identification of natural products from Microorganisms are still an important way to discover antibiotics, nevertheless, due to repeated isolation of bioactive natural products, the probability of finding new bioactive natural products becomes more and more difficult. Hence, multi-strategy discovery on active natural products becomes more important, including one strain many compounds (OSMAC) strategy, epigenome manipulation, genome mining, microbial/enzymatic transformation, etc. With the aid of multiple methodology and techniques, it will drive rapid development in the field of bioactive natural product development.
This Research Topic aims to demonstrate successful examples of various strategies for the discovery of novel natural products/secondary metabolites from microorganisms. The insights into microbial transformation and enzymatic catalysis for natural products from plants, animals, algae, and other organisms are also the targets of this topic. We encourage submissions of original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, methods articles, and other acceptable formats focusing on the following areas:
1) Isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive natural products from microorganisms, including fungi, actinomycetes and other bacteria, algae, etc.
2) Genome mining for the discovery of novel natural products including bioinformatics predictions, metabolomic comparisons, and genetic manipulations.
3) OSMAC strategy and epigenome manipulation through activating cryptic gene clusters for the discovery of novel natural products.
4) The strategies of microbial transformation and enzymatic catalysis to generate new bioactive molecules.
Microorganisms have provided abundant sources of natural products which have been developed as commercial products for human medicine, animal health, and plant crop protection. Back in 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered a naturally occurring antibacterial agent produced by the fungi Penicillium notatum, named penicillin, which began the microbial drug era. In the 1940s, Waksman’s systematic mining of antimicrobial agents produced by soil actinomycetes, leading to the discovery of streptomycin, actinomycin, and streptothricin, ushered in the golden age of antibiotic discovery. Nowadays, microbial natural products still have played a pivotal role in drug discovery and development. However, the presentation of ever-increasing pathogenic bacterial resistance, the emergence of new infectious viruses, and the lack of novel antimicrobial and antiviral agents have become a worrisome problem. Therefore, how to discover more natural products with new structures and novel mechanisms of action is an urgent problem to be solved now.
Admittedly, traditional isolation and identification of natural products from Microorganisms are still an important way to discover antibiotics, nevertheless, due to repeated isolation of bioactive natural products, the probability of finding new bioactive natural products becomes more and more difficult. Hence, multi-strategy discovery on active natural products becomes more important, including one strain many compounds (OSMAC) strategy, epigenome manipulation, genome mining, microbial/enzymatic transformation, etc. With the aid of multiple methodology and techniques, it will drive rapid development in the field of bioactive natural product development.
This Research Topic aims to demonstrate successful examples of various strategies for the discovery of novel natural products/secondary metabolites from microorganisms. The insights into microbial transformation and enzymatic catalysis for natural products from plants, animals, algae, and other organisms are also the targets of this topic. We encourage submissions of original research articles, reviews, mini-reviews, methods articles, and other acceptable formats focusing on the following areas:
1) Isolation and structure elucidation of bioactive natural products from microorganisms, including fungi, actinomycetes and other bacteria, algae, etc.
2) Genome mining for the discovery of novel natural products including bioinformatics predictions, metabolomic comparisons, and genetic manipulations.
3) OSMAC strategy and epigenome manipulation through activating cryptic gene clusters for the discovery of novel natural products.
4) The strategies of microbial transformation and enzymatic catalysis to generate new bioactive molecules.
