數百微生物基因組草圖繪成
發布時間：
2022-11-16
作者：
數百微生物基因組草圖繪成
鑒定出上千基因簇，全新抗生素或由此產生
科技日報北京6月14日電（記者張夢然）英國《自然》雜志14日在線發表的一項微生物學最新成果，美國科學家團隊繪制完成數百個非培養且未被研究過的微生物基因組草圖，并鑒定出了一千多個生物合成基因簇。研究表明，土壤中的細菌極有可能代表了一種有待開發的新型抗生素，以及其他藥用化合物的來源。
細菌在與抗生素的博弈中，已經變得越來越厲害。抗生素本質上是微生物（包括細菌、真菌、放線菌屬）或高等動植物在生活過程中所產生的一類次級代謝產物，具有抗病原體或其他活性的作用，會干擾其他細胞的發育功能。目前科學界認為，遏制耐藥性感染增多趨勢，需要全新的抗生素。但過去30年里，僅有非常少量的新抗生素被開發出來，人們急需新的抗生素來對抗多藥耐藥型病原體。
美國加州大學伯克利分校研究人員朱利安·本菲爾德及其同事，此次成功繪制出了數百個非培養且基本未被研究過的微生物的基因組草圖，這些微生物來自加利福尼亞州北部一片草原的土壤生態系統。隨后，研究團隊鑒定出了一千多個生物合成基因簇，推測它們可合成一系列分子，包括各種肽、抗菌毒素和功能不明的其他代謝物。這些基因的表達因土壤樣品采集的深度和位置而有所不同，反映了它們對不同環境條件的生物反應。
已知土壤中的微生物會產生多種有用的次級代謝物，包括抗生素、抗真菌劑和免疫抑制劑，但是它們大多數都來源于少數培養的微生物群。而今這項研究擴大了這些分子的潛在來源范圍，甚至還發現了兩個以前未知的、具有異常強大生物合成能力的細菌種類。此外，這項研究也提出了土壤微生物使用這種復雜的化學語言相互溝通的可能性。
上世紀40年代，青霉素出現后改變了世界——抗生素讓許多以往的不治之癥可以被治愈。但隨之，病毒也在持續進化并產生耐藥性。人們認為，唯一有效辦法是制造新的抗生素出來——這需要大量相關的基礎研究來確認產生抗生素的微生物，包括檢查上千種不同樣本，培養、篩選并確定其不是老抗生素。亦因此，數百個未被研究過且非人工培養的微生物基因組草圖，才被視作全新抗生素出現的希望。
Hundreds of microbial genomes have been sketched out
Thousands of gene clusters have been identified, and new antibiotics may be created
Journal of science and technology Beijing, June 14 (xinhua Zhang Mengran) UK 14, published online in the journal nature of the latest achievements in a microbiology, scientists in the United States team mapped hundreds of cultivation and none of them has been studied microbial genome sequence, and identified more than one thousand biosynthesis gene cluster. Studies have shown that bacteria in the soil are likely to represent a new antibiotic to be developed, as well as a source of other medicinal compounds.
Bacteria have become more and more powerful in the game against antibiotics. Antibiotics is essentially microbes (including bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes) or higher animals and plants in the process of the life of a class of secondary metabolites, have the function of the resistance to pathogen or other activity, interferes with the development of other cellular functions. Scientists now believe new antibiotics are needed to stem the rise of drug-resistant infections. But in the past 30 years, only a very small number of new antibiotics have been developed, and new antibiotics are urgently needed to fight multidrug-resistant pathogens.
Researchers at the university of California, Berkeley, Julian in this field, and his colleagues, the successful produced hundreds of cultivation and basic has not been studied the microbial genome sequence, the microbes from northern California a prairie soil ecosystem. The team then identified more than a thousand biosynthetic gene clusters and speculated that they could synthesize a range of molecules, including peptides, antibacterial toxins and other metabolites with unknown functions. The expression of these genes varies with the depth and location of soil samples collected, reflecting their biological responses to different environmental conditions.
Known soil microbes can produce a variety of useful secondary metabolites, including antibiotic, antifungal agent and immune inhibitor, but most of them are all derived from the microbiota minority culture. Now the study has expanded the potential sources of these molecules and even found two previously unknown species of bacteria with unusually strong biosynthesis capabilities. The study also raised the possibility that soil microbes could communicate with each other using this complex chemical language.
Penicillin changed the world in the 1940s with the advent of antibiotics that allowed many formerly incurable diseases to be cured. But then the virus continues to evolve and develop resistance. It is believed that the only effective way is to make new antibiotics out - it needs a large number of related basic research to confirm the antibiotic of microbes, including check thousands of different samples, training, screening and determine its not old antibiotics. As a result, hundreds of unstudied, uncultured sketches of microbial genomes are seen as promising new antibiotics.