Genomics and metabolomics are widely used to explore specialized metabolite diversity. The Paired Omics Data Platform is a community initiative to systematically document links between metabolome and (meta)genome data, aiding identification of natural product biosynthetic origins and metabolite structures.

The continual growth of publicly available genomic databases offers researchers unprecedented bioinformatic opportunities. This review examines different approaches to mining genomic data for the targeted discovery of bioactive natural products.

Highlights d Streptophenazine biosynthetic pathway (spz) was cloned from marine Streptomyces d Refactoring the spz pathway led to tremendous chemical diversity (112 compounds) d Streptophenazines with N-formylglycine moiety show potent antibiotic activity d Discrete adenylation protein is required to produce Nformylglycine analogs