Microbial Synthesis of Natural Products and Their Potential Applications
A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbial Biotechnology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 619
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
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
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Keywords
- bacteria
- fungi
- cryptic biosynthetic gene clusters
- genome mining
- natural products
- secondary metabolites
- drugs
- bioactivity
- biosynthesis
- heterologous expression
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