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Toxins
Special Issues
Production of Toxins by Peptide Synthetases and Polyketide Synthases
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Production of Toxins by Peptide Synthetases and Polyketide Synthases

A special issue of Toxins (ISSN 2072-6651).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2019) | Viewed by 3657

Special Issue Editor

Dr. James S. Metcalf

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Brain Chemistry Labs, Institute for Ethnomedicine, Box 3464, Jackson, WY 83001, USA
Interests: cyanobacteria; cyanotoxins; analysis; toxicology; exposure routes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Many fungal and bacterial, including cyanobacterial, secondary metabolites and toxins, are synthesized by enzymes through non-ribosomal peptide synthesis (NRPS). These enzymatic systems can involve peptide synthetases and polyketide synthases as examples. Understanding these enzyme systems has led to great advancements in risk assessment and in how toxin synthesis is controlled within microbial cells. As such systems encompass large multigene operons, the diversity within cyanobacteria and the cyanobacterial toxin variants that may be produced could be better understood through analysis of these genetic components. This Special Issue looks to understand the diversity of genes pertaining to toxin production using NRPS. This may involve mechanisms of understanding transcription and translation of the enzyme systems, construction and activity of the enzymes themselves and inhibitors and other mechanisms to stop toxin production via NRPS. Submissions can also include technical and industrial applications of these enzyme systems to produce toxins and novel therapeutics.

Dr. James S. Metcalf
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxins is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Enzyme
  • inhibition
  • NPRS
  • function
  • operon
  • regulation

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 1476 KiB  
Article
Mining the Yucatan Coastal Microbiome for the Identification of Non-Ribosomal Peptides Synthetase (NRPS) Genes
by Mario Alberto Martínez-Núñez and Zuemy Rodríguez-Escamilla
Toxins 2020, 12(6), 349; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/toxins12060349 - 26 May 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3283
Abstract
Prokaryotes represent a source of both biotechnological and pharmaceutical molecules of importance, such as nonribosomal peptides (NRPs). NRPs are secondary metabolites which their synthesis is independent of ribosomes. Traditionally, obtaining NRPs had focused on organisms from terrestrial environments, but in recent years marine [...] Read more.
Prokaryotes represent a source of both biotechnological and pharmaceutical molecules of importance, such as nonribosomal peptides (NRPs). NRPs are secondary metabolites which their synthesis is independent of ribosomes. Traditionally, obtaining NRPs had focused on organisms from terrestrial environments, but in recent years marine and coastal environments have emerged as an important source for the search and obtaining of nonribosomal compounds. In this study, we carried out a metataxonomic analysis of sediment of the coast of Yucatan in order to evaluate the potential of the microbial communities to contain bacteria involved in the synthesis of NRPs in two sites: one contaminated and the other conserved. As well as a metatranscriptomic analysis to discover nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs) genes. We found that the phyla with the highest representation of NRPs producing organisms were the Proteobacteria and Firmicutes present in the sediments of the conserved site. Similarly, the metatranscriptomic analysis showed that 52% of the sequences identified as catalytic domains of NRPSs were found in the conserved site sample, mostly (82%) belonging to Proteobacteria and Firmicutes; while the representation of Actinobacteria traditionally described as the major producers of secondary metabolites was low. It is important to highlight the prediction of metabolic pathways for siderophores production, as well as the identification of NRPS’s condensation domain in organisms of the Archaea domain. Because this opens the possibility to the search for new nonribosomal structures in these organisms. This is the first mining study using high throughput sequencing technologies conducted in the sediments of the Yucatan coast to search for bacteria producing NRPs, and genes that encode NRPSs enzymes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Production of Toxins by Peptide Synthetases and Polyketide Synthases)
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