A Review of the Microbial Production of Bioactive Natural Products and Biologics

Abstract

A variety of organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and plants, produce secondary metabolites, also known as natural products. Natural products have been a prolific source and an inspiration for numerous medical agents with widely divergent chemical structures and biological activities, including antimicrobial, immunosuppressive, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory activities, many of which have been developed as treatments and have potential therapeutic applications for human diseases. Aside from natural products, the recent development of recombinant DNA technology has sparked the development of a wide array of biopharmaceutical products, such as recombinant proteins, offering significant advances in treating a broad spectrum of medical illnesses and conditions. Herein, we will introduce the structures and diverse biological activities of natural products and recombinant proteins that have been exploited as valuable molecules in medicine, agriculture and insect control. In addition, we will explore past and ongoing efforts along with achievements in the development of robust and promising microorganisms as cell factories to produce biologically active molecules. Furthermore, we will review multi-disciplinary and comprehensive engineering approaches directed at improving yields of microbial production of natural products and proteins and generating novel molecules. Throughout this article, we will suggest ways in which microbial-derived biologically active molecular entities and their analogs could continue to inspire the development of new therapeutic agents in academia and industry.

New Insights into Detection of a Dendrobine Compound From a Novel Endophytic Trichoderma longibrachiatum Strain and Its Toxicity Against Phytopathogenic Bacteria

“…Owing to health hazards and harmful effects associated with the indiscriminate use of artificial drugs and antibiotics, there has been growing attention to the practice of biomedicine. In the past 20 years, more than half of the market drugs were developed from bioresources (Pham et al, 2019). Dendrobium plants belonging to the Orchidaceae family have been attributed as earliest sources of medicine over extended periods in Asia, Australia, and Europe.…”

Competitive exclusion of uropathogenicE. colibiofilm bySalmonellathrough matrix inhibition

“…However, natural products released by microbes during competition for territorial space could be potentially exploited for discovering novel antibiofilm compounds. Modern idea of infection therapy is based on antibiotics, which was discovered by Alexander Fleming and currently, around 69% of antimicrobials are from natural products (Pham et al ., 2019). Also, there is a renewed interest in discovering drugs from natural products (Waldetoft et al ., 2019).…”

Biosurfactant production maintains viability in anoxic conditions by depolarizing the membrane inBacillus subtilis

“…This finding has industrial implications as B. subtilis is commonly used to produce many biological compounds such as enzymes and antibiotics [47], and maintaining oxygen levels are critical to optimize production of the desired compound [48, 49]. If this oxygen-related growth yield enhancement holds across species, detergent addition may increase bioproduction in other commonly utilized organisms such as Streptomycetes species, which are used to isolate numerous antibiotics, and the industrial powerhouse Escherichia coli , which is widely used to synthesize many biopharmaceuticals such as insulin [47]. In addition to oxygen, surfactin may also facilitate growth by increasing nutrient diffusion to cells during late exponential phase when nutrients become limiting.…”