Sayak Banerjee, Amity University Kolkata
Secondary Metabolites as a Natural Defense System in Microbes:
All living beings inherit a natural defence system for ascertaining their survival. Microorganisms are mostly dependent upon the synthesized natural products that serve as a defence system against threats posed by the environment. This enables them to fight against other microorganisms. Several natural products are also known as secondary metabolites like this act as an antibiotic source required to compete with other diseases in humans. They have given rise to various medicinal drugs including antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and antitumor agents. Natural products help in different functions to the producers in different environments such as fungal development, oxidative stress tolerance, and antibiosis.
What are Anaerobic Gut Fungi?
Anaerobic fungi are a type of fungi that do not utilize oxygen to provide power to the production of natural products. They incorporate a more metabolic cost for the synthesis of something in comparison to aerobes. Due to the scarcity of energy in the oxygen-free anaerobes, anything produced by a microbe must be highly effective and precisely devised. Anaerobic gut fungi fall under the class Neocallimastigomycetes, which live as a member of the bacteria, archaea, and protozoa organization in the digestive tract of herbivores. These understudied organisms, although being hugely outnumbered by other prokaryotic microorganisms, lately, are of huge biotechnological interest. This is because of their aggregation of biomass-degrading enzymes. They have a variety of biosynthetic enzymes for natural products and it is evident via the implementation of genome and transcriptome sequencing.
The Study of Antibiotic building blocks in gut fungi:
Previously, there have been several kinds of research on the anaerobic fungi present in the guts of higher herbivores. It was mainly focused on the extraction of valuable products from the parts of the fibrous plant ingested by the animals which were non-edible consisting of leaves, stems, and roots, that are usually regarded as waste products. Recently, a researcher along with her lab scientists from The University of South Carolina’s School of Public Health has come up with a discovery that these gut fungi could probably synthesize new natural products or secondary metabolites. These metabolites might be functioning as an antibiotic or any other chemical compound useful for biotechnology.
On further study of the natural products, they found certain building blocks or biosynthetic gene clusters (BGC) which are known to be the precursors of antibiotics. BGCs are situated close to each other in a genome taking part in stepwise chemical reactions. These reactions involve the binding of a molecule with an enzyme and the further attachment of consequent enzymatic modules to it thus leading to the formation of a more and more complex molecule. This process of molecular assembly-line is essential since it is observed similar to that of antibiotic synthesis. Adding to its complex chemistry, BCGs also might be helpful for the production of value-added chemicals. One of the authors mentioned anaerobic fungi to be actively transcribed and is astonished to see it inheriting antibiotic properties as it was never expected.
Secondary metabolites in Antibiotic production and Fungal native function:
The scientists stated that the compounds which were found have not been discovered earlier and could be resulting in novel antibiotics. This can be the reason behind its existence as a minority within a diversely populated competitive microbiome. In the study, they proposed that antibiotic synthesis is well known to the scientific community and it could be done both by recombinantly or by genetic engineering as they derive from natural products. So, by only knowing the genetic recipe the novel antibiotic can be made at a large scale for its application in a different system altogether.
The scientists concluded that the follow-up research will involve the employment of genetic tools for enhancing the production and segregating the compounds to identify them. Among the many possibilities, the secondary metabolites regulate the fungal defence from bacterial counterparts and further experiments could decode many other functions. Additionally, the secondary metabolites from the anaerobic gut fungi serve as a potential source of antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides, and therapeutics.
Also read: Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cells & Tumorigenesis
Reference:
- Swift, C.L., Louie, K.B., Bowen B.P., et al. Anaerobic gut fungi are an untapped reservoir of natural products, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2019855118
About author:
Sayak Banerjee is a 3rd-year Biotechnology Engineering Student with a great interest in Immunology and Microbial genetics. He is a creative scientific writer in Bioxone with an inclination towards gaining knowledge regarding various sections of Biotechnology and engaging himself in various wet lab skills.
Publications:
- https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/car-t-cells-scientists-discover-on-off-switches-for-cell-immunotherapy/
- https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/neutrophil-derived-nanovesicles-a-novel-drug-delivery-system/
- https://bioxone.in/news/worldnews/pig-to-human-heart-transplantation-a-solution-to-the-rarity-of-donor-organs/
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- Nitrogen Resilience in Waterlogged Soybean plants
- Cell Senescence in Type II Diabetes: Therapeutic Potential
- Transgene-Free Canker-Resistant Citrus sinensis with Cas12/RNP
- AI Literacy in Early Childhood Education: Challenges and Opportunities
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