Producing Novel Biosynthetic Therapeutics from Extreme Microbiomes

Environmental DNA from three extreme samples will be isolated, cloned into a fosmid library (5760 clones) for sequencing. The sequencing datawill cover ~ 240 Megabases and will be assembled into contigs long enough (~ 40 Kilobases) to represent potential biosynthetic gene clusters(BGCs). This data will be compared to BGC databases looking for homology to antibiotic targets of DoD interest and with reasonable expressionprofiles. Subcloning and expression will be performed on BGC clones of interest followed by inhibitory growth assays to prove in vitro antibacterialactivity. The Option period will be used to test the antibacterial cell extracts against DoD pathogens at the Core facility.