Abstract
Salinispora (Micromonosporaceae) is an obligate marine bacterium genus consisting of three species that share over 99% 16S rRNA identity. The genome and biosynthetic pathways of the members of this genus have been widely investigated due to their production of species-specific metabolites. However, despite the species’ high genetic similarity, site-specific secondary metabolic gene clusters have been found in Salinispora strains collected at different locations. Therefore, exploring the metabolic expression of Salinispora recovered from different sites may furnish insights into their environmental adaptation or their chemical communication and, further, may lead to the discovery of new natural products. We describe the first occurrence of Salinispora strains in sediments from the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago (a collection of islets in Brazil) in the Atlantic Ocean, and we investigate the metabolic profiles of these strains by employing mass-spectrometry-based metabolomic approaches, including molecular networking from the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking platform. Furthermore, we analyze data from Salinispora strains recovered from sediments from the Madeira Archipelago (Portugal, Macaronesia) in order to provide a wider metabolomic investigation of Salinispora strains from the Atlantic Oceanic islands. Overall, our study evidences a broader geographic influence on the secondary metabolism of Salinispora than was previously proposed. Still, some biosynthetic gene clusters, such as those corresponding to typical chemical signatures of S. arenicola, like saliniketals and rifamycins, are highly conserved among the assessed strains.
Highlights
Salinispora is a genus of actinobacteria that has been widely studied and considered as a prolific source of natural products due to its unique biosynthetic pathways, which lead to the production of rich and diverse structures of secondary metabolites (Jensen et al, 2015)
A total of 54 actinobacteria strains were used in the present study, including 20 strains recovered from sediments collected off the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago – Brazil, as described by Ferreira et al (2016), and 34 strains recovered from sediment samples collected off the Madeira Archipelago – Portugal, as described by Prieto-Davo et al (2016)
All the BRA strains investigated in this study were identified as belonging to Salinispora based on the 16S rRNA gene similarity
Summary
Salinispora is a genus of actinobacteria that has been widely studied and considered as a prolific source of natural products due to its unique biosynthetic pathways, which lead to the production of rich and diverse structures of secondary metabolites (Jensen et al, 2015). In order to investigate the metabolites produced by Salinispora strains reported here, we employed metabolomic tools, such as molecular networking from GNPS platform. The identification was supported by a phylogenetic reconstruction using 16S rRNA data including sequences of S. tropica, S. arenicola, and S. pacifica from Millan-Aguinaga et al (2017) (Figure 2).
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