Recent genomic studies of microbiomes have revealed an overwhelming number of biosynthetic genes of unknown function. Most of these “cryptic” biosynthetic genes are not expressed in laboratory monocultures of individual microbes. Thus there remains tremendous untapped potential for natural products discovery. Here we employ bacterial co-culturing as a simple yet powerful approach to awaken cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters. Our preliminary study demonstrated that arrays of metabolites could be induced in bacterial co-cultures upon environmental cues, such as surface adhesion. Using this co-culture system, we screen, identify and isolate inducible bacterial metabolites, which are characterized structurally and biologically. This study continues to reveal several previously overlooked signaling molecules that are exchanged only in specific social contexts of co-cultures as identified by bacterial community analysis. Characterization of such signaling factors will open new opportunities to develop molecular agents to control bacterial behaviors for biomedical and environmental applications. This presentation will focus on the metabolites produced by microbial co-cultures obtained from environmental samples, such as leaf-cutter ant mound and wheatgrass leaves. Their chemical structures and potential roles in microbial communications will be discussed. A series of signaling molecules has been revealed by way of a distinctive approach to culturing bacteria, showing promise for interventions beyond antibiotics.

Don’t sell them short: There’s more to bacterial natural products than antibiotics

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.