Sequencing and mining Brazilian cyanobacterial genomes to identify biosynthetic gene clusters

• Grant number: 25/02439-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2025
• End date: April 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry - Organic Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Camila Manoel Crnkovic
• Grantee: Lígia Akemi Mizuyama
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/02872-4 - Integrated strategies for natural product discovery from Brazilian cyanobacteria, AP.PNGP.PI

Abstract

Natural products are a recognized source of compounds that inspire the discovery and development of pharmaceutical drugs. Cyanobacterial secondary metabolites have shown great potential for biotechnological and medical applications, including compounds with antiviral, antifungal, and antiproliferative properties. However, natural products from Brazilian cyanobacteria remain understudied. With the expansion of bioinformatics and advancements in genome sequencing, the analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) through genome mining emerges as a promising strategy in the prospecting of natural products. In a previous project, our research group developed a systematic rationale for prioritizing BGCs based on previously studied cyanobacterial genomes, thus helping the discovery of potential secondary metabolites. This project aims to use genome mining to analyze Brazilian cyanobacterial sequences by identifying and prioritizing biosynthetic gene clusters. Our first aim is to extract, sequence, and mine new cyanobacterial genomes from Brazil, searching for promising BGCs. Our second aim is to implement our BGC prioritization algorithm in Python, seeking a more accessible tool for the scientific community. The algorithm will be tested with publicly available genomes from Brazilian cyanobacteria.