Genome Mining and Drug Discovery of Marine and Halophilic Microorganisms

Dear Colleagues,

Marine and halophilic microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, phytoplankton, and larger algae, as well as some invertebrates, are currently considered potentially promising sources of bioactive substances. Findings related to new marine and halophilic microorganisms reveal the existence of native strains that produce a variety of chemically and biologically interesting secondary metabolites for the development and production of novel compounds of significance in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, nutritional supplements, biomolecules, biocatalysts, agrochemicals, chemical industries. Research on new metabolites of marine/halophilic origin has increased considerably in recent years. Of all these secondary metabolites, the application antibiotics and drugs to treat cancer are particularly relevant due to the problems of bacterial resistance that threaten public health and the large number of carcinogenic processes that take place.

On the other hand, recent advances in DNA sequencing have led to an enormous increase in the number of published procaryotes genomes and bioinformatics tools developed to analyze the biosynthetic potential of natural products via various “genome mining” approaches.

The microorganisms that we can cultivate are much fewer than those that actually exist in their natural habitats, including, of course, marine and halophilic environments; therefore, the search for new microorganisms that can be cultivated in these environments is a great challenge, and if we consider that many of these microorganisms are capable of producing secondary metabolites, they constitute a large field to discover.

Antimicrobial resistance is one of the major health problems facing humanity. More and more superbugs capable of overcoming available antibiotics are being detected and, if resistance continues to escalate at the current rate, some 10 million people a year will die from bacterial infections by 2050, at a global economic cost that will exceed USD 100,000 million.

In recent years, in order to face these great public health problems, various marine and halophilic ecosystems have been explored, representing a popular area in the search for new bioactive metabolites. The increasing appearance of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has generated the need to evaluate various natural compounds with antimicrobial activity as an alternative in the treatment of infectious and contagious diseases and, in this way, counteract some of these public and veterinary health problems.

It should also be noted that cancer is a disease that has great relevance today because it is among the most serious health problems worldwide. As such, there is a great need to search for new therapeutic options, where bioactive compounds are presented as a promising alternative. The search for new bioactive compounds in marine and halophilic microorganisms is an alternative that has attracted much interest in recent years.

This Special Issue invites academic and industry scientists to submit reviews and original research articles addressing both the discovery of new marine bacteria that produce novel compounds and genomics-driven studies on marine bacteria that focus on natural product discovery and characterization.

Dr. Cristina Sánchez-Porro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• halophilic
• microorganisms
• metagenomic
• genome mining
• gene clusters
• biodiversity
• antibiotics
• anticancer
• secondary metabolites
• bioactive molecules