Investigating Microbial Natural Product Biosynthesis

微生物占据了地球上的每一个栖息地，并拥有惊人的代谢多样性。这种代谢动力在自然界中被用来驱动地球化学循环，并已被人类用于绿色化学，生物修复和抗生素等化学品的生产。尽管微生物在环境和人类健康中的关键作用越来越明显，但长期以来，由于我们无法培养它们，表征和开发它们的全部潜力受到限制。事实上，只有不到1%的微生物可以在实验室培养中生长，这表明微生物代谢多样性的巨大储备尚未开发。从环境样品中分离总DNA并在可培养的细菌宿主中表达这些基因（宏基因组学）可以捕获这个水库，并提供以前未知的微生物酶和小分子，这些微生物酶和小分子有可能解决人类健康，能源，农业和环境方面的社会挑战。在这些挑战中，发现新的生物活性有机磷化合物是一个重要的目标，可以通过了解膦酸盐生物合成的微生物策略来实现。拟议研究计划的长期目标是发现未培养微生物编码的新型小分子和生物合成酶。拟议研究的直接目标是发现含C-P键的小分子（膦酸盐/次膦酸盐），并表征参与其生物合成的酶。膦酸酯是用作除草剂和抗生素的小分子天然产物，但已知的天然膦酸酯相对较少。该研究旨在鉴定在农业和医学中具有潜在应用的新型膦酸酯，并发现能够用于生物催化和绿色化学应用的新酶。

Microorganisms occupy every habitat on earth and possess an astounding array of metabolic diversity. This metabolic power is used in Nature to drive biogeochemical cycles, and has been harnessed by humans for green chemistry, bioremediation, and the production of chemicals such as antibiotics. Although the crucial role of microbes in the environment and human health is increasingly apparent, characterizing and exploiting their full potential has long been limited by our inability to culture them. Indeed, less than 1% of microorganisms may be grown in laboratory culture, indicating that a vast reservoir of microbial metabolic diversity remains untapped. Isolating total DNA from an environmental sample and expressing these genes in a cultivable bacterial host (metagenomics) can capture this reservoir and provide access to previously unknown microbial enzymes and small molecules with potential to address societal challenges in human health, energy, agriculture, and the environment. Among such challenges, discovering new bioactive organophosphorus compounds is an important goal that can be realized by understanding microbial strategies of phosphonate biosynthesis. The long-term objective of the proposed research program is to discover novel small molecules and biosynthetic enzymes encoded by uncultivated microorganisms. The immediate goals of the proposed research are to discover C-P bond-containing small molecules (phosphonates/phosphinates) and characterize the enzymes involved in their biosynthesis. Phosphonates are small molecule natural products used as herbicides and antibiotics, but relatively few natural phosphonates are known. The proposed research aims to identify novel phosphonates with potential applications in agriculture and medicine, and uncover new enzymes capable of being exploited for biocatalysis and green chemistry applications.