Speaker
Description
The recent advancements in metabolomics and genomic sequencing technologies have sparked a resurgence in natural product exploration, especially in ecological contexts. Analysing the intricate chemistry of symbiotic systems has become increasingly important given the significance of diverse microbial metabolites in regulating such interactions. Our recent findings highlight that symbiotic microbes present prolific sources of novel biochemistry and secondary metabolites and that we can use the chemical and genomic information to increase the structural diversity of natural products. Here, I will elaborate on two recent examples that highlight the enormous biosynthetic repertoire of protective bacterial symbionts and their unique natural product chemistry. The first example will highlight a novel family of non-ribosomally synthesized peptides, which exhibits unusual combinations of chemical modifications. In a second example I will elaborate on a non-canonical polyketide synthase-derived metabolite family with antimicrobial properties, which exhibits structural features derived from different oxidative rearrangement steps.
