Discovery of novel natural products from endophytic Streptomyces spp. isolated from Leontopodium nivale ssp. alpinum

In our lab, several Streptomyces spp. were isolated from the medicinal plant Leontopodium nivale ssp. alpinum, commonly known as Edelweiss. Bacteria of the genus Streptomyces are known to produce many secondary metabolites, some of which are of major importance for biotechnology, agriculture, and especially medicine because they represent about two-thirds of all naturally derived antibiotics in current clinical use [1]. Typically, only a few secondary metabolites are produced under standard laboratory conditions because the biosynthesis gene clusters (BGCs) responsible for their production are not or are only poorly expressed [2]. In this project, the genomes of 9 Streptomyces spp. from Edelweiss were sequenced. A total of 210 BGCs of which 42 are presumably unique, were identified by the bioinformatics tool antiSMASH 6.0 [3]. Genome mining approaches such as heterologous expression of biosynthesis gene clusters, gene knock-outs and overexpression are being applied to these isolates to reveal their potential for bioactive secondary metabolite production [4]. Extracts from the generated recombinant strains are being analysed by HPLC and LC-MS in search of novel compounds. This project may lead to the discovery of novel natural products, including antibiotics against bacterial and fungal infections, as well as other diseases (e.g. cancer).

Publication History

Article published online:
16 November 2023

• References

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• 3 Blin K, Shaw S, Kloosterman AM.. et al. antiSMASH 6.0: improving cluster detection and comparison capabilities Nucleic Acids Research. 2021
• 4 Sekurova ON, Schneider O, Zotchev SB.. Novel bioactive natural products from bacteria via bioprospecting, genome mining and metabolic engineering. Microb. Biotechnol. 2019; 12: 828-844