Meta'omic analysis of sponge microbiota.

Project: PhD

Project Details

Description

Over the past decades, more and more microorganisms have become resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. The problem was stated as urgent in the last years, and ESKAPE pathogens were identified as a primary target for antibiotic development. Because of high reidentification rates of currently known compounds, it is hard to find novel natural products. In this context, microbiomes of deep-sea marine sponges hold intriguing potential for unconventional natural product chemistry . This project will incorporate metagenomics and metatranscriptomics data analysis to identify potentially interesting Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs) and try to cultivate bacteria that encode them. As proposed in this project, a cultivation-based approach is generally preferable for further biotechnological applications. Also, it will help to ensure that BGC products isolated will be the actual native compounds. The project is a part of MARBLES consortium, which aims to find natural product novelty in understudied marine life. In our project, first and foremost we will use specialized genome mining software to enrich our metagenomic samples with BGCs, such as decRiPPter, DeepRiPP, antiSMASH. Then we will prioritize organisms harboring intriguing clusters for metabolic modelling and cultivation.
StatusActive
Effective start/end date1/12/21 → …

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