Functional Metagenomics as a Tool to Tap into Natural Diversity of Valuable Biotechnological Compounds

Abstract

The marine ecosystem covers more than 70% of the world's surface, and oceans represent a source of varied types of organisms due to the diversified environment. Consequently, the marine environment is an exceptional depot of novel bioactive natural products, with structural and chemical features generally not found in terrestrial habitats. Here, in particular, microbes represent a vast source of unknown and probably new physiological characteristics. They have evolved during extended evolutionary processes of physiological adaptations under various environmental conditions and selection pressures. However, to date, the biodiversity of marine microbes and the versatility of their bioactive compounds and metabolites have not been fully explored. Thus, metagenomic tools are required to exploit the untapped marine microbial diversity and their bioactive compounds. This chapter focuses on function-based marine metagenomics to screen for bioactive molecules of value for biotechnology. Functional metagenomic strategies are described, including sampling in the marine environment, constructing marine metagenomic large-insert libraries, and examples on function-based screens for quorum quenching and anti-biofilm activities.

Keywords: Biofilm; Construction of fosmid libraries; Crystal violet assay; Environmental DNA; Functional screening; Marine functional metagenomics; Peptides; Quorum quenching.