Approaches for accessing and studying the full encoded natural product potential of marine bacteria

Bacteria have long been an excellent source of bioactive natural product molecules that find application in therapeutics and drug development. Marine microbes in particular represent a promising and relatively untapped reservoir of natural products, however, there are still several challenges in the field of bacterial natural products discovery. Difficulties associated with cultivation of microbes in the artificial laboratory environment and also challenges gaining access to the full biosynthetic potential of bacteria in the lab remain bottlenecks in the effective and expedient exploitation of natural products as drug leads. We are currently developing ways to expand the range of compound classes and numbers of molecules bacteria produce during lab cultivation. This presentation will discuss approaches we are taking to prioritize the most fruitful strains to study, cultivation based strategies to facilitate molecule production/discovery and genetic methods for inducing expression of silent biosynthetic gene clusters to allow access to the full scope of encoded metabolites.