Biosynthetic potential of the sediment microbial subcommunities of an unexplored karst ecosystem and its ecological implications

This study employed an enrichment method and genome mining tools to uncover novel bacterial genomes and explore their biosynthetic potential. The research focused on microbial communities residing in the sediments of an uncharted karst environment, specifically the Polac sinkhole, located on the Yucat án Peninsula. AbstractMicrobial communities from various environments have been studied in the quest for new natural products with a broad range of applications in medicine and biotechnology. We employed an enrichment method and genome mining tools to examine the biosynthetic potential of microbial communities in the sediments of a coastal sinkhole within the karst ecosystem of the Yucat án Peninsula, Mexico. Our investigation led to the detection of 203 biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) and 55 secondary metabolites (SMs) within 35 high-quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) derived from these subcommunities. The most abundant types of BGCs were Terpene, Nonribosomal peptid e-synthetase, and Type III polyketide synthase. Some of the in silico identified BGCs and SMs have been previously reported to exhibit biological activities against pathogenic bacteria and fungi. Others could play significant roles in the sinkhole ecosystem, such as iron solubilization and osmotic s tress protection. Interestingly, 75% of the BGCs showed no sequence homology with bacterial BGCs previously reported in the MiBIG database. This suggests that the microbial communities in this environmen...
Source: MicrobiologyOpen - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Source Type: research