mSphere of Influence: Systematically Decoding Microbial Chemical Communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT Laura A. Mike works in the field of bacterial pathogenesis. In this mSphere of Influence article, she reflects on how “Insights into Secondary Metabolism from a Global Analysis of Prokaryotic Biosynthetic Gene Clusters” by P. Cimermancic et al. (Cell 158:412–421, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.06.034) and “A Systematic Analysis of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in the Human Microbiome Reveals a Common Family of Antibiotics” by M. S. Donia et al. (Cell 158:1402–1414, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.08.032) made an impact on her by systematically identifying microbiome-associated biosynthetic gene clusters predicted to synthesize secondary metabolites, which may facilitate interspecies interactions.

Keywords

• bioinformatics
• extracellular signaling
• microbial communities
• secondary metabolism