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🌟 Revolutionizing Natural Product Discovery with Advanced Cloning Techniques! 🌟

🧑‍🔬 Our colleagues Olena Kurylenko and Yuriy Rebets have published an article on advancement in the field of microbial biotechnology by developing an improved transformation-associated recombination (TAR) cloning approach for capturing natural product biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). This innovative method, utilizing the yeast killer phenomenon, significantly enhances the efficiency and precision of cloning large gene clusters from Actinobacteria, particularly the genus Streptomyces.

🔬 Why This Matters:

  1. 🧬 Enhanced Cloning Efficiency:
    🔹 The new TAR cloning vector system allows for direct selection of colonies carrying the desired BGCs, reducing the need for intensive screening.
    🔹 Successfully cloned large BGCs, such as the chelocardin (35 kb) from Amycolatopsis sulphurea and daptomycin (67 kb) from Streptomyces filamentosus, were functionally expressed in a heterologous host.
  2. 🧫 Broader Applications:
    🔹 This approach can be widely applied to precisely clone BGCs from various representatives of the Actinomycetota phylum and can be easily adapted for other bacteria.
    🔹 The method supports the discovery of diverse bioactive natural products, which are crucial for developing new antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals.
  3. ⚙️ Sustainability and Innovation:
    🔹 By streamlining the cloning process, this technique promotes sustainable practices in natural product research and biotechnology.
    🔹 It opens up new possibilities for exploring the vast chemical diversity of natural products and their potential applications in medicine and industry.

🌱 The Future of Natural Product Discovery:

This research represents a significant step forward in the quest to discover the true power of natural products for pharmaceutical and industrial applications. By improving the efficiency and precision of cloning large gene clusters, we are opening the way for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds that could lead to the development of new drugs and therapies.

🔗Read full article here: https://enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1751-7915.70067

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🌟 Unlocking Nature’s Hidden Arsenal: The Genetic Secrets of Limocrocin 🌟

In the recent study, our colleagues Sofia Melnyk and Yuriy Rebets with our partners from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), and German-Ukrainian Core of Excellence in Natural Products Research (CENtR) have successfully uncovered the genetic basis behind the production of limocrocin (LIM), a remarkable antiviral polyketide. This incredible feat was achieved through the in-depth study of biosynthetic gene clusters (smBGCs) in the bacterium Streptomyces roseochromogenes.

🧬What are biosynthetic gene clusters?

Biosynthetic gene clusters are groups of co-located genes that work together to produce complex molecules. In this case, we delved into the smBGCs of Streptomyces roseochromogenes to identify the genes responsible for producing limocrocin.

Actinomycete genomes harbor dozens of BGCs for the production of diverse specialized metabolites. Majority of these BGCs, however, remain cryptic under typical laboratory conditions. Our work sheds the light on the biosynthesis of LIM family compounds in bacteria, which had remained unknown for seven decades, and offers a convenient biological platform to overproduce LIM and generate its analogs.

🔍 Why does this matter?

Limocrocin has shown significant potential in interfering with viral reverse transcriptases, which are enzymes that certain viruses use to replicate their genetic material. This makes limocrocin a promising candidate for antiviral therapies. By unraveling the genetic code behind its production, we can now explore ways to enhance its production and develop new derivatives with even better antiviral properties.

💡 The implications are profound:

💊 Enhanced Antiviral Therapies: With a deeper understanding of limocrocin biosynthesis, researchers can engineer bacteria to produce larger quantities of this compound, paving the way for more effective antiviral drugs.
🧑‍🔬 New Drug Derivaties: The genetic knowledge allows scientists to tweak the biosynthetic pathways, creating new limocrocin derivatives that could be even more effective against viruses.
🌱 Biotechnological Advances: This research exemplifies how exploring natural biosynthetic pathways can lead to novel biotechnological innovations, potentially uncovering other valuable compounds in the future.

🔗Read full article here: https://bit.ly/3EnYEMu

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Soil metagenomics

Metagenomics is a promising approach in describing the phylogenetic and functional diversity of the complex microbial community. EXG is now offering the metagenomic DNA isolation from different samples, whole metagenome and amplicon metagenomic sequencing accompanied by bioinformatic analysis.

Metagenomic DNA isolated from soil sample.
Phylogenetic distribution of diverse bacteria in soil sample.

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EXG Taq DNA polymerase

Explogen developed the production strain and purification protocol for our own Taq DNA polymerase (thanks to our researcher Dmytro). The enzyme is of high purity and efficient in amplifying DNA fragments from diverse templates. The EXG-Taq is offered for a very attractive price. Be first to try it in your lab.

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Explogen and MyBiotech from now are cooperating in antibiotic discovery.

Explogen and German company MyBiotech have signed the cooperation agreement launching joint efforts in antibiotic discovery and development. MyBiotech has broad knowledge and expertise in biotechnological development and production of natural compounds, which covers all aspects of upstream and downstream processes. Explogen will provide the complementary expertise in metabolic engineering of microorganisms, development of activity-oriented screening approaches, cloning and manipulating large DNA fragments, genome sequencing and bioinformatics.  The agreement between Explogen and MyBiotech establishes the cooperative Platform that will facilitate new drug discovery and development and thus will contribute to addressing the global antibiotic resistance crisis. The main goal of such cooperation is to provide new chemical entities with well-established and optimized production process as potential candidates for further development into pharmaceutical leads.

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Soluble form of SARS-CoV2 receptor binding domain of Spike protein

Explogen has purified denatured and soluble forms of recombinant RBD of S1-protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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Meetings at Explogen’s kitchen.

Explogen started a series of open topic seminars. We are aiming to make science entertaining and thus inviting interesting speakers to talk about serious topics in a simple and understandable way. Please join us at Facebook page for new announcements. https://www.facebook.com/Explogen-LLC-249335689379346

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One for all: the cross-reactive immune response to SARS and MERS viruses.

The EXG’s bioinformatician contributed to understanding of cross-coronaviral humoral immune response phenomenon. Dr. Rostyslav Bilyy and his team with EXG contribution have demonstrated that Coronaviruses possess conservative domains in S-protein and disease caused by one type of virus will probably result in cross-reactive pan-coronaviral antibodies production. The paper describing this finding was recently published at MedRXiv. 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.20.20178566v1

SARS-CoV-2 — Википедия

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The unusual Streptomyces ukrainascabiei.

For quite some time we were looking to isolate one of only a few known pathogenic to plant Streptomyces species – Streptomyces scabiei. Finally, by finding the scab-infected potato tubers on a local market we got 3 actinobacteria species, one of which was dominant. This strain, named Streptomyces ukrainascabiei EXG0031, is closely related, but still different from other known Streptomyces scabiei. However, unlike the related species, the S. ukrainascabiei is stimulating seeds germination and growth of radish sprouts. On the other hand, one of the minor isolates, Streptomyces sp. EXG0029 demonstrated a strong inhibition of radish germination. Now, with the genomics and metabolic analysis we are looking to find the factors causing this unusual behavior of both strains.

Radish seed and young sprouts after 5 days on a plates with the cultures of three different Streptomyces strains.
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Explogen scientists purified the SARS-CoV2 receptor binding domain of Spike protein

Explogen joins the common efforts in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. We purified SARS-CoV2 receptor binding domain of spike protein under denaturing conditions. The protein samples are compatible with the immunoassays such as ELISA and most importantly are suitable for vaccine development.

SDS PAGE of RBD of the SARS-Cov2 Spike protein