J Syst Evol

• Research Article • Previous Articles    

Multi-omics analyses uncovering the biosynthetic potential of novel Micromonospora species isolated from desert and marine habitats

Jia-Rui Han1†, Shuai Li2†, Wen-Hui Lian1, Lu Xu1, Li Duan1, Jia-Ling Li3, Chu-Ying Feng1, Guo-Yuan Shi1, Wen-Ling Liu1, Qi-Chuang Wei1, Wen-Jun Li1,2*, Lei Dong1*   

  1. 1State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Stress Biology and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat‑sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
    2State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Key Laboratory of Ecological Safety and Sustainable Development in Arid Lands, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
    3Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou), 511458, China

    The authors contributed equally to this work.
    *Authors for correspondence. Wen-Jun Li. E-mail: liwenjun3@mail.sysu.edu.cn; Lei Dong. E-mail: donglei6@mail.sysu.edu.cn
  • Received:2024-12-29 Accepted:2025-03-08
  • Supported by:
    This work was financed by the following projects: National Natural Science Foundation of China (32270076), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2023A1515012020), the Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition Program (2022xjkk1200) and the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2022B0202110001).

Abstract: The genus Micromonospora, a globally distributed actinomycete inhabiting diverse ecosystems, is widely recognized for its remarkable biosynthetic capacity and role as a prolific source of bioactive natural products. However, the members of the genus Micromonospora from extreme environment remain largely unstudied. In this study, we isolated 15 Micromonospora spp. strains from samples collected in desert and marine habitats. Based on polyphasic taxonomy approaches eight strains were identified and represent four novel species. Genome mining of the newly isolated strains revealed substantial biosynthetic potential for terpenes (n=70, 22.9% of total biosynthetic gene clusters, BGCs) and polyketides (n=60, 19.6% of total BGCs). Subsequent pan-genomic analysis identified substantial numbers of terpene-related (n=745, 33.8% of total biosynthetic genes, BGs) and polyketide-related (n=728, 33.0%) BGs in the core genome, highlighting their core biosynthetic potential. To further investigate their metabolic capacity, fermentation and metabolomic profiling were conducted to assess the secondary metabolite production capacity of all 15 strains. The results revealed a diverse array of alkaloids (averaging 75.3, 33.4% of total annotated secondary metabolites) and amino acid-derived peptides (averaging 56.3, 25.0% of total). These findings also highlight significant metabolic variations among strains and underscore the pivotal role of fermentation conditions in shaping their metabolic profiles. This study advances the taxonomic and functional understanding of Micromonospora spp. and presents a multi-omics framework combining genome mining and metabolomics to explore the biosynthetic potential of wild-type strains from extreme habitats.

Key words: desert and marine habitats, genome mining, metabolomics, Micromonospora, multi-omics analysis, polyphasic taxonomy.