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Analytical Microbiology

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Analytical Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2020) | Viewed by 9713

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Fundación MEDINA, Granada, Spain
Interests: natural products chemistry(NP): untargeted and targeted, microbial metabolomics with mass spectrometry; molecular networks; microbial NP induction and production; NP extraction, purification and structure elucidation; structure-activity-relationships in NP, NP drug, discovery, NP libraries generation and maintenance; chemometrics on NP; libraries; in-vitro and in-vivo high throughput screening; antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer NP; multi-drug-resistances; bioinformatics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since its initial scope as a branch of microbiology in which microorganisms were used as ‘reagents’ for the quantitative determination of certain compounds in health and ecological environments, analytical microbiology has evolved, together with the development of analytical chemistry, towards its application in microorganism identification, systematics, and diagnosis. Currently, it also includes the characterization of known and unknown metabolites that microorganisms produce, both constitutively or as a consequence of their interactions with other microorganisms, or even after the introduction of engineered pathways, as well as the description of their metabolomic responses to epigenetic modifiers or chemical elicitors, aiming towards the identification, structural elucidation, and quantification of response biomarkers and potential bioactive agents.
Miniaturization and computer-assisted processing of large sets of analytical data from highly sensitive techniques, especially innovative mass spectrometry combined with hightroughput gas or liquid chromatography, are advancing analytical microbiology towards a new level of understanding of how microorganims, individually or in communities such as the microbiome, react to their environment, and how changes in their growth conditions can affect the molecular networks they produce.
This Special Issue of Molecules aims to cover current analytical microbiology and how chemical innovations and big data processing may open future trends in the field.

Dr. José Rubén Tormo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Microbial metabolomics;
  • Chemotaxonomy;
  • Targeted and untargeted metabolomics;
  • Molecular networks;
  • Microbial interactions;
  • Microbial communities, microbiome;
  • Microbial biomarkers;
  • Bioactive agents;
  • Mass spectrometry;
  • Big data.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 4356 KiB  
Article
Metabolomic Analysis of The Chemical Diversity of South Africa Leaf Litter Fungal Species Using an Epigenetic Culture-Based Approach
by Rachel Serrano, Víctor González-Menéndez, Germán Martínez, Clara Toro, Jesús Martín, Olga Genilloud and  José R. Tormo
Molecules 2021, 26(14), 4262; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26144262 - 14 Jul 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2799
Abstract
Microbial natural products are an invaluable resource for the biotechnological industry. Genome mining studies have highlighted the huge biosynthetic potential of fungi, which is underexploited by standard fermentation conditions. Epigenetic effectors and/or cultivation-based approaches have successfully been applied to activate cryptic biosynthetic pathways [...] Read more.
Microbial natural products are an invaluable resource for the biotechnological industry. Genome mining studies have highlighted the huge biosynthetic potential of fungi, which is underexploited by standard fermentation conditions. Epigenetic effectors and/or cultivation-based approaches have successfully been applied to activate cryptic biosynthetic pathways in order to produce the chemical diversity suggested in available fungal genomes. The addition of Suberoylanilide Hydroxamic Acid to fermentation processes was evaluated to assess its effect on the metabolomic diversity of a taxonomically diverse fungal population. Here, metabolomic methodologies were implemented to identify changes in secondary metabolite profiles to determine the best fermentation conditions. The results confirmed previously described effects of the epigenetic modifier on the metabolism of a population of 232 wide diverse South Africa fungal strains cultured in different fermentation media where the induction of differential metabolites was observed. Furthermore, one solid-state fermentation (BRFT medium), two classic successful liquid fermentation media (LSFM and YES) and two new liquid media formulations (MCKX and SMK-II) were compared to identify the most productive conditions for the different populations of taxonomic subgroups. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Analytical Microbiology)
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12 pages, 1687 KiB  
Article
Biological Evaluation and In Silico Study of Benzoic Acid Derivatives from Bjerkandera adusta Targeting Proteostasis Network Modules
by Katerina Georgousaki, Nikolaos Tsafantakis, Sentiljana Gumeni, George Lambrinidis, Victor González-Menéndez, Jose R. Tormo, Olga Genilloud, Ioannis P. Trougakos and Nikolas Fokialakis
Molecules 2020, 25(3), 666; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25030666 - 4 Feb 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3535
Abstract
A main cellular functional module that becomes dysfunctional during aging is the proteostasis network. In the present study, we show that benzoic acid derivatives isolated from Bjerkandera adusta promote the activity of the two main protein degradation systems, namely the ubiquitin-proteasome (UPP) and [...] Read more.
A main cellular functional module that becomes dysfunctional during aging is the proteostasis network. In the present study, we show that benzoic acid derivatives isolated from Bjerkandera adusta promote the activity of the two main protein degradation systems, namely the ubiquitin-proteasome (UPP) and especially the autophagy-lysosome pathway (ALP) in human foreskin fibroblasts. Our findings were further supported by in silico studies, where all compounds were found to be putative binders of both cathepsins B and L. Among them, compound 3 (3-chloro-4-methoxybenzoic acid) showed the most potent interaction with both enzymes, which justifies the strong activation of cathepsins B and L (467.3 ± 3.9%) on cell-based assays. Considering that the activity of both the UPP and ALP pathways decreases with aging, our results suggest that the hydroxybenzoic acid scaffold could be considered as a promising candidate for the development of novel modulators of the proteostasis network, and likely of anti-aging agents. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Analytical Microbiology)
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11 pages, 2665 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Microbial Transformation of 10-deoxoartemisinin by UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MSE
by Yue Bai, Dong Zhang, Peng Sun, Yifan Zhao, Xiaoqiang Chang, Yue Ma and Lan Yang
Molecules 2019, 24(21), 3874; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24213874 - 28 Oct 2019
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2652
Abstract
10-deoxoartemisinin is a semisynthetic derivative of artemisinin that lacks a lactone carbonyl group at the 10-position, and has stronger antimalarial properties than artemisinin. However, 10-deoxoartemisinin has limited utility as a therapeutic agent because of its low solubility and bioavailability. Hydroxylated 10-deoxoartemisinins are a [...] Read more.
10-deoxoartemisinin is a semisynthetic derivative of artemisinin that lacks a lactone carbonyl group at the 10-position, and has stronger antimalarial properties than artemisinin. However, 10-deoxoartemisinin has limited utility as a therapeutic agent because of its low solubility and bioavailability. Hydroxylated 10-deoxoartemisinins are a series of properties-improved derivatives. Via microbial transformation, which can hydroxylate 10-deoxoartemisinin at multiple sites, the biotransformation products of 10-deoxoartemisinin have been investigated in this paper. Using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MSE) combined with UNIFI software, products of microbial transformation of 10-deoxoartemisinin were rapidly and directly analyzed. The hydroxylation abilities of nine microorganisms were compared using this method. All of the microorganisms evaluated were able to hydroxylate 10-deoxoartemisinin, and a total of 35 hydroxylated products were identified. These can be grouped into dihydroxylated 10-deoxoartemisinins, monohydroxylated 10-deoxoartemisinins, hydroxylated dehydrogenated 10-deoxoartemisinins, and hydroxylated hydrogenated 10-deoxoartemisinins. Cunninghamella echinulata and Cunninghamella blakesleeana are able to hydroxylate 10-deoxoartemisinin, and their biotransformation products are investigated here for the first time. Cunninghamella elegans CICC 40250 was shown to most efficiently hydroxylate 10-deoxoartemisinin, and could serve as a model organism for microbial transformation. This method could be used to generate additional hydroxylated 10-deoxoartemisinins for further research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Analytical Microbiology)
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