Natural Products from Cyanobacteria: Focus on Beneficial Activities

Abstract

Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microorganisms that colonize diverse environments worldwide, ranging from ocean to freshwaters, soils, and extreme environments. Their adaptation capacities and the diversity of natural products that they synthesize, support cyanobacterial success in colonization of their respective ecological niches. Although cyanobacteria are well-known for their toxin production and their relative deleterious consequences, they also produce a large variety of molecules that exhibit beneficial properties with high potential in various fields (e.g., a synthetic analog of dolastatin 10 is used against Hodgkin’s lymphoma). The present review focuses on the beneficial activities of cyanobacterial molecules described so far. Based on an analysis of 670 papers, it appears that more than 90 genera of cyanobacteria have been observed to produce compounds with potentially beneficial activities in which most of them belong to the orders Oscillatoriales, Nostocales, Chroococcales, and Synechococcales. The rest of the cyanobacterial orders (i.e., Pleurocapsales, Chroococcidiopsales, and Gloeobacterales) remain poorly explored in terms of their molecular diversity and relative bioactivity. The diverse cyanobacterial metabolites possessing beneficial bioactivities belong to 10 different chemical classes (alkaloids, depsipeptides, lipopeptides, macrolides/lactones, peptides, terpenes, polysaccharides, lipids, polyketides, and others) that exhibit 14 major kinds of bioactivity. However, no direct relationship between the chemical class and the respective bioactivity of these molecules has been demonstrated. We further selected and specifically described 47 molecule families according to their respective bioactivities and their potential uses in pharmacology, cosmetology, agriculture, or other specific fields of interest. With this up-to-date review, we attempt to present new perspectives for the rational discovery of novel cyanobacterial metabolites with beneficial bioactivity.

Diversity of Bacterial Biosynthetic Genes in Maritime Antarctica

“…Although, to our knowledge there are no reports of Antarctic Moorea strains to date, this result might indicate that the recovered sequences are associated with Moorea or other closely related genera. KS domains closely associated with the genus Nostoc, commonly retrieved from culture-based studies in Antarctica [54], and the second most NP-rich cyanobacterial genus [53], were detected in all samples (Table S6).…”

“…Regarding Cyanobacteria, the order Nostocales is widely distributed among the samples and the order Oscillatoriales accounted for 72% and 58% of relative abundance of KS provenience in samples AC3 and I1, respectively ( Figure 6C). Oscillatoriales produce the largest number of cyanobacterial metabolites described to date, followed by Nostocales [53]. Interestingly, KS domains sequences identified with high identity to the Cyanobacteria genus Moorea, the most prolific genus of cyanobacterial NPs [53], was detected with high abundance in samples AC3 and I1 (Table S6).…”

“…Oscillatoriales produce the largest number of cyanobacterial metabolites described to date, followed by Nostocales [53]. Interestingly, KS domains sequences identified with high identity to the Cyanobacteria genus Moorea, the most prolific genus of cyanobacterial NPs [53], was detected with high abundance in samples AC3 and I1 (Table S6). Although, to our knowledge there are no reports of Antarctic Moorea strains to date, this result might indicate that the recovered sequences are associated with Moorea or other closely related genera.…”

Shared PKS modules in biosynthesis of synergistic laxaphycins

“…Cyanobacteria are abundant primary producers in aquatic environments and are targeted to grazing by higher organisms, such as sea hares (Cruz-Rivera and Paul, 2007). Cyanobacteria produce a wide range of bioactive natural products (Dittmann et al, 2015; Demay et al, 2019) that seem to be produced to deter the grazing fauna in the environment (Leão et al, 2012; Mazard et al, 2016). Potential competitors to cyanobacteria are also other microbes such as chytrids, which are fungi parasitic to cyanobacteria (Agha et al, 2018).…”

“…Many bioactive natural products have complex chemical structures with rare chemical moieties that allow them to react with specific molecular targets and to kill or inhibit the growth of other organisms (Rodrigues et al, 2016). Cyanobacteria produce a wide variety of natural products with different activities and complicated structures (Demay et al, 2019; Huang and Zimba, 2019). Characterization of new natural products offers starting material for drug design as new active structures (Rodrigues et al, 2016).…”