Marine Microbial Diversity as a Source of Bioactive Natural Products - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Marine drugs Année : 2020

Marine Microbial Diversity as a Source of Bioactive Natural Products

Résumé

Some 3.5 billion years ago, microorganisms were the first to colonize Earth. They have gradually evolved, within intricate systems of microbial and macroscopic species, to occupy virtually all the available niches on the planet. Genetic drift and natural selection have molded the phenotypic expression of a trillion different microbial species [1], shaping their metabolisms and offering ever-more advantageous abilities to expand, with the production of new metabolites being one key to the fitness and evolutionary success of new species [2]. The rate of discovery of new natural products of microbial origin has increased significantly since the 1970s with the advent of modern methods of purification and structural determination, and later, with holistic approaches to chemical analysis and genetic information-based exploration of natural chemodiversity [3-6]. With these tools in hand and the exploration of innovative and ecologically relevant sources of microorganisms, it is possible to rapidly expand the exploration of chemodiversity on a global scale, and eventually isolate innovative compounds. It should be noted that the enthusiasm to discover new scaffolds is not necessarily relevant in the context of the search for active or useful natural products. Structural modifications that do not affect the core scaffold of a metabolite may provide a significant benefit that can be developed for a therapeutic use. A notable example is in the immense diversity of terpenes built on a limited number of scaffolds. Terpenes have different functional roles-and therefore different biological activities-and have largely contributed to the diversification of higher plants [2,7]. Today, marine microbes can still be regarded as a relatively underappreciated potential source of active compounds yet to be discovered. Some microorganisms can live freely in the water column, while many others live in association. For example, sponges host microorganisms that contribute to their holometabolome, while many coral species host microalgae and symbiotic prokaryotes. Furthermore, many microorganisms contribute to the construction of interspecific biofilms covering biotic and abiotic surfaces. While recent advances in natural-product science now provide access to an unknown dimension of chemodiversity, metabolic engineering will eventually allow the production of active marine compounds in amounts necessary for pharmaceutical development. The Special Issue "Marine Microbial Diversity as a Source of Bioactive Natural Products" was aimed at collecting papers with up-to-date information regarding the characterization of marine microbes' metabolic diversity and the evaluation of the therapeutic potential of marine microbes' metabolites. The interest of the Special Issue was also to show that the exploration of underrated reservoirs of marine microorganisms can lead to the discovery of valuable secondary metabolites. In total, 10 articles were accepted and included in the Special Issue. Most of the articles in this special issue deal with marine fungi, biological and chemical diversity, and their active metabolites. This may be a sign that marine fungi have been under studied to date, and are perceived by many researchers as an important source of discovery in this field [8]. Focusing on marine Arthrinium spp. isolates, Heo et al. conducted a phylogenetic analysis based on internal transcribed spacers, nuclear large subunit rDNA, β-tubulin, and translation elongation factor region

Domaines

Autre
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
marinedrugs-18-00215.pdf (773.56 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-02861020 , version 1 (05-11-2020)

Identifiants

Citer

Didier Stien. Marine Microbial Diversity as a Source of Bioactive Natural Products. Marine drugs, 2020, 18 (4), pp.215. ⟨10.3390/md18040215⟩. ⟨hal-02861020⟩
40 Consultations
78 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More