Prof. Pei-Yuan Qian - Genome-mining based natural product discovery at HKUST

With rapid increase in genome information of marine microbes in public domain, genome mining allows us to extract substantial amount information on metabolic process and secondary metabolites of microbes, which can aid the bioactive compound discovery as well as the understanding of ecological function of microbes.  In the present study,  I will present our recent work on genome-mining based bioactive compound discovery from marine microbes, which was triggered by our discovery of a didemnins-producing marine bacterium from the Red Sea. Analysis of T. mobilis genome has not only allowed us to characterize the biosynthesis pathways of didemnins but also led to discovery a group of calpian inhibitors and relevant biosynthesis pathways.  Using genome mining methods, we revealed chemical diversity and genome diversity.  As we have also developed a method to clone entire biosynthesis pathways of marine bioactive compounds, it became possible for us to manipulate biosynthesis pathways to generate more analogous for screening and studying mode of action of compounds in near future.