Discovery and biosynthesis of natural products from microbiomes

Bacterial natural products play an important role in microbiomes, and they serve as a promising source for novel antimicrobial compounds. Within microbiomes, secondary metabolites mediate complex microbial interactions by acting as chemical signals or as defense compounds, and these molecules also impact the host. For example, plants are colonized by diverse microbiota that affect plant fitness, physiology, and pathogen resistance.

Our research interests include:

• Untargeted metabolomics approaches for natural product discovery
• Meta-genomic analysis and genome mining of microbiomes
• Biosynthesis of microbiome-derived natural products, especially RiPPs
• Elucidating the roles of secondary metabolites in microbiome interactions

The research group BRYOMIC (Antimicrobial natural products from the moss microbiome) is integrated into the structural unit Metabolomics-guided Natural Product Discovery. It is funded by the Free State of Thuringia with resources from the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+).