Revealing Natural Products From Mystery 'Vagrant Genes'

Microorganisms have a proven track record for producing powerful molecules useful in antibiotics, as anticancer agents, and in treating human diseases.

At times, researchers studying the genomes of these microorganisms have come across sections of DNA for which scientists cannot determine what is ultimately produced. It's not clear what might be created from these so-called "orphan gene clusters" and if those end products might carry beneficial qualities.

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have devised a new method for identifying the mysterious products of orphan gene clusters.

"In this new age of genomics, microorganisms have even more capacity to make exotic natural product molecules than we ever realized," said William Gerwick, a professor in Scripps Oceanography's Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego. "However, sometimes we don't know how to find these products. We can see them in the genomic information but we can't necessarily find the resulting organic substances."

The method developed by Gerwick and his colleagues employs a novel combination of genomic sequence analysis and isotope labeling. The new "genomisotopic approach" is described in the new issue of Chemistry & Biology as the journal's featured cover paper.

Gerwick says the key to the genomisotopic approach lies in the combined power of bioinformatics