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SUMMARY:EESS talk on "Mining the biosynthetic potential of the global ocea
 n microbiome: from unsuspected taxa to enzymatic novelties"
DTSTART:20211116T121500
DTEND:20211116T131500
DTSTAMP:20260916T131012Z
UID:48fa3a2e81c68072c5046cdb35606b0b2798941aade6ea1a74d90fdf
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Shinichi Sunagawa\, Professor\, Institute of Microbiology\,
  ETH Zurich\nAbstract:\nNatural microbial communities are phylogenetically
  and metabolically diverse. This diversity encompasses\, in addition to un
 derexplored lineages a rich discovery potential for enzymes and biochemica
 l compounds including ecologically and/or biotechnologically relevant ones
 . However\, exploring microbial diversity in the environment to identify g
 enomic pathways producing such compounds and assigning them to their hosts
  remains challenging. For example\, the biosynthetic potential of microbes
  in the open ocean remains\, despite their known taxonomic diversity\, lar
 gely unexplored. We reconstructed >25\,000 draft genomes\, including from 
 >2\,500 uncharacterized species\, from globally distributed ocean microbia
 l communities\, and combined them with ~10\,000 genomes from cultivated an
 d single cells. Mining this integrative data resource revealed ~40\,000 pu
 tative biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs)\, many from unknown phylogenetic 
 groups. Among these\, we discovered a BGC-rich lineage (Candidatus Eudorem
 icrobiaceae) that belongs to an uncultivated bacterial phylum and represen
 ts the most biosynthetically diverse microbes detected in the open oceans.
  By integrating metatranscriptomic data\, we shed light on their ecology a
 nd hypothesize a niche-partitioning role for BGC products in environmental
  populations. Furthermore\, we experimentally characterized cases of unusu
 al enzymology and bioactive compound structure within selected biosyntheti
 c pathways. Together\, this work illustrates how microbiomics-driven strat
 egies enable prospecting for yet unknown enzymes and natural products in u
 nderexplored microbial groups and environments.\n\nShort biography:\nShini
 chi Sunagawa studied Biochemistry and Marine Ecology in Germany\, and obta
 ined his PhD in 2010 at the University of California\, Merced\, USA. Afer 
 returning to Germany\, he joined the European Molecular Biology Laboratory
  in Heidelberg as a postdoctoral fellow\, and continued to work on ocean a
 nd human gut microbial communities as a research- and staff scientist. In 
 2016\, he established the Microbiome Research Laboratory at the Institute 
 of Microbiology at ETH Zürich\, which combines bioinformatic and experim
 ental approaches to integrate quantitative ‘meta-omics’ readouts with 
 contextual information to study and the role of environmental microorganis
 ms and mechanisms of host-microbial homeostasis. The group develops data r
 esources and tools that have enabled the scientific community to (a) profi
 le species-\, gene- and single nucleotide variant-resolved compositions of
  microbial community genomes\, (b) integrate metagenomics and metatranscri
 ptomics data sets\, and more recently\, (c) predict inducible prophages. C
 urrently\, the group focuses on i) studying human gut microbial features i
 n the context of acute myeloid leukemia and inborn metabolic diseases\, ii
 ) reconstructing microbial genomes from metagenomic data from diverse envi
 ronments\, and iii) exploring the global ocean microbiome for its phylogen
 omic diversity and biosynthetic potential.
LOCATION:https://epfl.zoom.us/j/63900222242?pwd=OXluejhzTklCbkdWakkvaUFCSG
 Vndz09
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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