Mining Natural Product Biosynthesis in Eukaryotic Algae

Abstract

Eukaryotic algae are an extremely diverse category of photosynthetic organisms and some species produce highly potent bioactive compounds poisonous to humans or other animals, most notably observed during harmful algal blooms. These natural products include some of the most poisonous small molecules known and unique cyclic polyethers. However, the diversity and complexity of algal genomes means that sequencing-based research has lagged behind research into more readily sequenced microbes, such as bacteria and fungi. Applying informatics techniques to the algal genomes that are now available reveals new natural product biosynthetic pathways, with different groups of algae containing different types of pathways. There is some evidence for gene clusters and the biosynthetic logic of polyketides enables some prediction of these final products. For other pathways, it is much more challenging to predict the products and there may be many gene clusters that are not identified with the automated tools. These results suggest that there is a great diversity of biosynthetic capacity for natural products encoded in the genomes of algae and suggest areas for future research focus.

Plant biosynthetic gene clusters in the context of metabolic evolution

“…14 A thorough analysis of chlorophyte genomes examined putative BGCs using three methods, optimised for bacterial, fungal or plant clusters. 78 The plant-optimised method found no reasonable candidates, even in the chlorophytes (green alga), whereas the fungal and bacterial methods performed similarly well, nding an average of 5 clusters per chlorophyte genome. Many genomes were found to contain a type-I polyketide megasynthase, a multidomain enzyme common in bacteria and fungi, and unlike the smaller type-III systems found in plants.…”

Cytochrome P450s in algae: Bioactive natural product biosynthesis and light-driven bioproduction

“…A recent genome survey disclosed the high diversity of P450s in eukaryotic algae 28 . However, due to the technical limitations in laboratory cultivation and gene-manipulation of eukaryotic algae, the progress on these membrane-bound P450s remains limited, especially for the P450s from giant kelps 25 , 27 . In this part, a limited number of eukaryotic algal P450s and their catalytic reactions will be reviewed ( Table 1 ).…”

“…Meanwhile, algae play their fundamental ecological roles by acting as oxygen producers and the food base for almost all aquatic life. Also, upon decades of natural organic chemistry studies, algae have been recognized as a rich source of high-value bioactive natural products 25 , 26 , 27 . Recent genome and transcriptome analyses have discovered numerous P450 genes involved in the basic life cycle of both cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae.…”

Antifouling Activity of Halogenated Compounds Derived from the Red Alga Sphaerococcus coronopifolius: Potential for the Development of Environmentally Friendly Solutions

“…Actually, marine macro-and microorganisms produce a wide and diverse range of secondary metabolites with promising bioactivities [26][27][28]. Among them, algae are well-known for their capacity to produce molecules with anticancer, antifouling, antibacterial or anti-inflammatory activity [29][30][31].…”