iBB

To shed light on the metabolic capacities of the bacterial symbionts of octocorals (Octocoallia, Cnidaria), iBB researchers examined 66 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from the microbial metagenomes of octocorals and seawater. The work recovered MAGs from dominant, so-far unculturable Endozoicomonadaceae and other symbionts, and identified a thus far unanticipated, global role for Endozoicomonadaceae symbionts of corals in the processing of chitin, the most abundant natural polysaccharide in the ocean. Other symbionts had genes for the assimilation of chitin oligosaccharides and for chitin deacetylation, suggesting possibilities for substrate cross-feeding and a role for the coral microbiome in overall chitin turnover. The study also observed sharp differences in secondary metabolite production potential between symbiotic lineages, and suggested that niche partitioning, metabolic specialization, and adaptation to low oxygen conditions among prokaryotic symbionts likely contribute to the plasticity and adaptability of the octocoral holobiont in changing marine environments. The article, published in the journal Microbiome, was led by iBB researchers Tina Keller-Costa and Rodrigo Costa and counted on contributions of EPFL MSc student Lydia Kozma, iBB PhD student Sandra Silva and collaborators from UALG-CCMAR, UFZ Leipzig and DOE JGI.

Sandra Godinho Silva, PhD candidate in Biotechnology and Biosciences, presented a talk entitled 'Big data meets natural products discovery: mining thousands of bacterial genomes to identify novel sources of drug leads' at the FEMS Conference on Microbiology 2022, held from 30 June to 2 July 2022 in Belgrade, Serbia. Her presentation explored the results of a large-scale comparative genomics approach to study natural product biosynthesis potential across 2680 bacterial genomes representing 1158 species and 175 genera of the metabolically-versatile order Flavobacteriales (phylum Bacteroidetes). Sandra was awarded a FEMS Research and Training Grant (GO-2019-511) to conduct her studies in the framework of an international collaboration on high-throughput genome mining led by Prof. Rodrigo Costa (BSRG-iBB, Portugal) and Dr. Ulisses N. da Rocha (Microbial Data Science Group, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ , Leipzig, Germany). The results will be compiled in Sandra’s PhD thesis, under the supervision of Prof. Rodrigo Costa and Dr. Tina Keller Costa (BSRG-iBB). Sandra also had the opportunity to co-chair an oral poster session with Prof. Bauke Oudega on 'FEMS Supported Projects & Miscellaneous', and her participation in the FEMS 2022 Conference was supported by a FEMS Congress Attendance Grant.