Global characterization of biosynthetic gene clusters in non-model eukaryotes using domain architectures

Taehyung Kwon; Blake T Hovde

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-50095-3

Global characterization of biosynthetic gene clusters in non-model eukaryotes using domain architectures

Sci Rep. 2024 Jan 17;14(1):1534. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-50095-3.

Authors

Taehyung Kwon¹, Blake T Hovde²

Affiliations

¹ Genomics and Bioanalytics Group, Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
² Genomics and Bioanalytics Group, Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA. hovdebt@lanl.gov.

Abstract

The majority of pharmaceuticals are derived from natural products, bioactive compounds naturally synthesized by organisms to provide evolutionary advantages. Although the rich evolutionary history of eukaryotic algal species implicates a high potential for natural product-based drug discovery, it remains largely untouched. This study investigates 2762 putative biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) from 212 eukaryotic algal genomes. To analyze a vast set of structurally diverse BGCs, we employed comparative analysis based on the vectorization of biosynthetic domains, referred to as biosynthetic domain architecture (BDA). By characterizing core biosynthetic machineries through BDA, we identified key BDAs of modular BGCs in diverse eukaryotes and introduced 16 candidate modular BGCs with similar BDAs to previously validated BGCs. This study provides a global characterization of eukaryotic algal BGCs, offering an alternative to laborious manual curation for BGC prioritization.

MeSH terms

Biosynthetic Pathways / genetics
Eukaryota* / genetics
Multigene Family*

Grants and funding

20200562ECR/Los Alamos National Laboratory