Mapping the BGCs to a species phylogeny from GTDB allowed us to see who's making (detectable) NRP metallophores. We found BGCs in 60% of Myxobacteria, 41% of Cyanobacteria, 35% of Actinobacteria, 18% of Proteobacteria, and just 3.3% of Firmicutes. Few were found outside these phyla.

Where can we find biosynthetic novelty? Cyanobacteria! We found them to be severely understudied. Nearly all BGCs were distinct from each other and from the two (!) known cyanobacterial NRP metallophores.

So what's next?

Well as for me, I'm looking for my next step! I've had a fantastic postdoc with @marnixmedema, but it will soon be time for me to move on. I'm looking for a position, possibly remote, that will allow me to return to my home in sunny Santa Barbara, California. If you have any leads, please let me know!

And as for metallophore discovery? We already have plans for an expanded full paper, so stay tuned!

I applied the rules to 15k bacterial genomes to generate the first global census of NRP metallophore biosynthesis in bacteria (but certainly not the last!)

BiG-SCAPE networking showed that many BGCs are unlike anything found in MIBiG, and nearly 500 were only found in a single species! We also identified a couple of chelator combinations not found in any known BGCs

NRP metallophores have chelating substructures rarely found in other natural products, and genes encoding chelator biosyntheses are often in the BGC alongside the NRPS. I developed a series of HMMs to detect those chelator pathways.

Using this (not-so-)simple strategy, we could identify 78% of NRP metallophore BGCs with just a 3% false positive rate.

How do I know? Expert examination is still the best way to find metallophore BGCs, so I manually annotated 758 NRPS BGCs as a gold standard!

I'm pleased to announce that antiSMASH can now predict if an NRPS BGC produces a metallophore!

Check out our new preprint for all the details:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.14.519525v1

I tested the new algorithm on 15k bacterial genomes. NRP metallophores make up an astounding 25% of all NRPS BGCs! This thread will have some more highlights.

Test it out on the antiSMASH website and let me know what you think!
https://antismash.secondarymetabolites.org/#!/start
(You may have to clear your cache for "Enable antiSMASH beta" to appear)

Proud of former postdoc #BenOyserman for publishing this nice story as a last-author paper: https://nature.com/articles/s43705-022-00189-2
TbasCO facilitates identifying and comparing expression traits in metagenome-assembled genomes, going beyond genomic absence/presence to see what actually happens.

TbasCO is available here: https://github.com/Jorisvansteenbrugge/TbasCO