PhD Project 4
Microbiology, novel strains isolation, and exploitation of a collection of marine-derived microbial extracts as source of new compounds
Andrea López-Mobilia
I'm a PhD candidate at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples. The focus of my project is to isolate rare marine actinomycetes from extreme environments to uncover biotechnologically valuable compounds that I will purify and then elucidate their structures. Additionally, I'm exploring OSMAC (One Strain Many Compounds) including co-cultivation to activate silent gene expressions for producing antimicrobials, biosurfactants, and siderophores, and later on to optimize and scale up production. I hold an Erasmus Mundus joint master’s in aquaculture from the University of the Highlands and Islands, U. of Crete, and U. of Nantes, and a bachelor’s in marine biology from Universidad Cientifica del Sur in Peru.
Microbiology, novel strains isolation, and exploitation of a collection of marine-derived microbial extracts as source of new compounds
Objectives: Isolation and characterization of promising marine bacteria and improvement of secondary metabolites production (especially antimicrobials, siderophores and biosurfactants) by exploring different cultivation approaches. Strains will be collected from different extreme locations and isolated applying a wide range of conditions and substrates to maximise the biodiversity. Then the most diverse will be identified and initially cultivated in 96xDeepwell plates (OSMAC approach, axenic cultures and co-cultivation). A wide range of screening will be applied in order to select promising candidates for the lab scale-up. Genomes of the best microbial candidates will be sequenced and subjected to a genome mining approach for the identification of novel biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Along with the OSMAC (One Strain MAny Compounds) approach, special co-cultivation systems will be explored to induce the expression of silent BGCs which will be further chemically analysed. As a matter of fact, this part of the project will be followed by the extraction and metabolic profiling of the samples in order to apply a fast dereplication approach. Mass spectrometry and the use of molecular networking will allow the selection of new potential molecules which will be further purified and identified by NMR.
