美国普林斯顿大学Mohamed S. Donia团队开发出可研究人类微生物组化学分子库的宏基因组学策略。2019年10月3日，该项研究成果在线发表在《科学》上。

研究人员将新的计算算法与合成生物学相结合，来研究直接在人类微生物组宏基因组测序数据中编码的具有生物活性的小分子。研究人员发现，临床使用的一类分子的成员在人类微生物组中得到广泛编码，并且它们对邻近的微生物发挥有效的抗菌活性，这暗示了在微环境竞争和宿主防御中的可能作用。这个方法为系统揭示人类微生物组编码的化学成分铺平了道路，并为发现微生物组与宿主和微生物组与微生物组相互作用的分子介导者提供了可用的平台。

据悉，在确定微生物组对人类生理和疾病的影响方面已经取得了显著进展，但是控制这些作用的潜在分子和机制在很大程度上尚待探索。

附：英文原文

Title: A metagenomic strategy for harnessing the chemical repertoire of the human microbiome

Author: Yuki Sugimoto, Francine R. Camacho, Shuo Wang, Pranatchareeya Chankhamjon, Arman Odabas, Abhishek Biswas, Philip D. Jeffrey, Mohamed S. Donia

Issue&Volume: 2019/10/03

Abstract: Remarkable progress has been made in determining the effects of the microbiome on human physiology and disease, but the underlying molecules and mechanisms governing these effects remain largely unexplored. Here, we combine a new computational algorithm with synthetic biology to access biologically active small molecules encoded directly in human microbiome-derived metagenomic sequencing data. We discover that members of a clinically used class of molecules are widely encoded in the human microbiome, and that they exert potent antibacterial activities against neighboring microbes, implying a possible role in niche competition and host defense. Our approach paves the way toward a systematic unveiling of the chemical repertoire encoded by the human microbiome and provides a generalizable platform for discovering molecular mediators of microbiome-host and microbiome-microbiome interactions.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aax9176

Source:https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/10/02/science.aax9176