Marine sponge and octocoral-associated bacteria show versatile secondary metabolite biosynthesis potential and antimicrobial activities against human pathogens

• Autor(a) principal: Almeida, João F.
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Marques, Matilde, Oliveira, Vanessa, Egas, Conceição, Mil-Homens, Dalila, Viana, Romeu, Cleary, Daniel F. R., Huang, Yusheng M., Fialho, Arsénio M., Teixeira, Miguel C., Gomes, Newton C. M., Costa, Rodrigo, Keller-Costa, Tina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/19138
• topic: Bioprospection; Biosynthetic gene clusters; Blue biotechnology; Culture collections; Genomics; Marine bacteria

Marine microbiomes are prolific sources of bioactive natural products of potential pharmaceutical value. This study inspected two culture collections comprising 919 host-associated marine bacteria belonging to 55 genera and several thus-far unclassified lineages to identify isolates with potentially rich secondary metabolism and antimicrobial activities. Seventy representative isolates had their genomes mined for secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (SM-BGCs) and were screened for antimicrobial activities against four pathogenic bacteria and five pathogenic Candida strains. In total, 466 SM-BGCs were identified, with antimicrobial peptide- and polyketide synthase-related SM-BGCs being frequently detected. Only 38 SM-BGCs had similarities greater than 70% to SM-BGCs encoding known compounds, highlighting the potential biosynthetic novelty encoded by these genomes. Cross-streak assays showed that 33 of the 70 genome-sequenced isolates were active against at least one Candida species, while 44 isolates showed activity against at least one bacterial pathogen. Taxon-specific differences in antimicrobial activity among isolates suggested distinct molecules involved in antagonism against bacterial versus Candida pathogens. The here reported culture collections and genome-sequenced isolates constitute a valuable resource of understudied marine bacteria displaying antimicrobial activities and potential for the biosynthesis of novel secondary metabolites, holding promise for a future sustainable production of marine drug leads.