Microbial Synthesis of Natural Products and Their Potential Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Microbial communities comprising bacteria and fungi are immense treasure troves for producing the most promising biologically active natural products. Out of the approximately half-million known natural products, around 70,000 are derived from bacteria and fungi, with nearly half (approximately 33,500) having had their bioactivities characterized. These natural products serve as drug leads for the pharmaceutical arsenal and contemporary medicine; however, the rediscovery of known chemical skeletons has emerged as an impediment to discovering novel natural products with diverse bioactivities. Moreover, the growing prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens represents a critical threat to global public health. This underscores the urgent need for the discovery of novel bioactive natural products derived from microorganisms. Remarkably, genome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis unveiled that only a very small fraction of the biosynthetic potential of microorganisms has been realized. The number of cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that remain uncharacterized is immense. This Special Issue of Microorganisms is dedicated to gathering new insights into the microbial synthesis of natural products and their potential applications, spanning novel microbial natural product discovery, the elucidation of the biosynthetic logic of microbial compounds, and their promising bioactivities. We welcome submissions consisting of reviews, original research articles, and communications.

Dr. Jingyu Zhang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.