An environmental bacterial taxon with a large and distinct metabolic repertoire

Cultivated bacteria such as actinomycetes are a highly useful source of biomedically important natural products. However, such ‘talented’ producers represent only a minute fraction of the entire, mostly uncultivated, prokaryotic diversity. The uncultured majority is generally perceived as a large, untapped resource of new drug candidates, but so far it is unknown whether taxa containing talented bacteria indeed exist. Here we report the single-cell- and metagenomics-based discovery of such producers. Two phylotypes of the candidate genus ‘Entotheonella’ with genomes of greater than 9 megabases and multiple, distinct biosynthetic gene clusters co-inhabit the chemically and microbially rich marine sponge…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: -AC02-05CH11231, 05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02, DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02-
• AV
  Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung

  Award: DE-AC02-05CH11231
• JG
  Joint Genome Institute

  Awards: DE-AC02-05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231
• DA
  Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Awards: SFB 630, DE-AC02-05CH11231, TP A5, PI 430/9-1
• SN
  Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung

  Award: 31003A_146992
• BF
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

  Award: 0315585J
• SD
  Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes
• OO
  Office of Science

  Awards: AC02-05CH11231, -AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02
• JS
  Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

  Award: 23760755