The increasing emergence of new forms of multidrug resistance among human pathogenic bacteria, coupled with the consequent increase of infectious diseases, urgently requires the discovery and development of novel antimicrobial drugs with new modes of action. Most of the antibiotics currently available on the market were obtained from terrestrial organisms or derived semisynthetically from fermentation products. The isolation of microorganisms from previously unexplored habitats may lead to the discovery of lead structures with antibiotic activity. The deep-sea environment is a unique habitat, and deep-sea microorganisms, because of their adaptation to this extreme environment, have the potential to produce novel secondary metabolites with potent biological activities. This review covers novel antibiotics isolated from deep-sea microorganisms. The chemical classes of the compounds, their bioactivities, and the sources of organisms are outlined. Furthermore, the authors report recent advances in techniques and strategies for the exploitation of deep-sea microorganisms.

Cold environments are populated by organisms able to contravene deleterious effects of low temperature by diverse adaptive strategies, including the production of ice binding proteins (IBPs) that inhibit the growth of ice crystals inside and outside cells. We describe the properties of such a protein (EfcIBP) identified in the metagenome of an Antarctic biological consortium composed of the ciliate Euplotes focardii and psychrophilic non-cultured bacteria. Recombinant EfcIBP can resist freezing without any conformational damage and is moderately heat stable, with a midpoint temperature of 66.4 °C. Tested for its effects on ice, EfcIBP shows an unusual combination of properties not reported in other bacterial IBPs. First, it is one of the best-performing IBPs described to date in the inhibition of ice recrystallization, with effective concentrations in the nanomolar range. Moreover, EfcIBP has thermal hysteresis activity (0.53 °C at 50 μm) and it can stop a crystal from growing when held at a constant temperature within the thermal hysteresis gap. EfcIBP protects purified proteins and bacterial cells from freezing damage when exposed to challenging temperatures. EfcIBP also possesses a potential N-terminal signal sequence for protein transport and a DUF3494 domain that is common to secreted IBPs. These features lead us to hypothesize that the protein is either anchored at the outer cell surface or concentrated around cells to provide survival advantage to the whole cell consortium

Microorganisms living in extreme environments represent a huge reservoir of novel antimicrobial compounds and possibly of novel chemical families. Antarctica is one of the most extraordinary places on Earth and exhibits many distinctive features. Antarctic microorganisms are well known producers of valuable secondary metabolites. Specifically, several Antarctic strains have been reported to inhibit opportunistic human pathogens strains belonging to Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc). Herein, we applied a biodiscovery pipeline for the identification of anti-Bcc compounds. Antarctic sub-sea sediments were collected from the Ross Sea, and used to isolate 25 microorganisms, which were phylogenetically affiliated to three bacterial genera (Psychrobacter, Arthrobacter, and Pseudomonas) via sequencing and analysis of 16S rRNA genes. They were then subjected to a primary cell-based screening to determine their bioactivity against Bcc strains. Positive isolates were used to produce crude extracts from microbial spent culture media, to perform the secondary screening. Strain Pseudomonas BNT1 was then selected for bioassay-guided purification employing SPE and HPLC. Finally, LC-MS and NMR structurally resolved the purified bioactive compounds. With this strategy, we achieved the isolation of three rhamnolipids, two of which were new, endowed with high (MIC < 1 μg/mL) and unreported antimicrobial activity against Bcc strains.

The enormous potential in diversity of the marine life is still not fully exploited due to the difficulty in culturing many of the microorganisms under laboratory conditions. In this mini-review we underlined the importance of using an omics technique, such as metagenomics, to access the uncultured majority of microbial communities. We report examples of several hydrolytic enzymes and natural products isolated by functional sequenced-based and function-screening strategies assisted by new high-throughput DNA sequencing technology and recent bioinformatics tools. This article ends with an overview of the potential future perspectives of the metagenomics in bioprospecting novel biocatalysts and bioactive compounds from marine sources.

In order to exploit the rich reservoir of marine cold-adapted bacteria as a source of bioactive metabolites, ethyl acetate crude extracts of thirteen polar marine bacteria were tested for their antiproliferative activity on A549 lung epithelial cancer cells. The crude extract from Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TAC125 was the most active in inhibiting cell proliferation. Extensive bioassay-guided purification and mass spectrometric characterization allowed the identification of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA) as the molecule responsible for this bioactivity. We further demonstrate that 4-HBA inhibits A549 cancer cell proliferation with an IC 50 value ≤ 1 μg ml −1 , and that the effect is specific, since the other two HBA isomers (i.e. 2-HBA and 3-HBA) were unable to inhibit cell proliferation. The effect of 4-HBA is also selective since treatment of normal lung epithelial cells (WI-38) with 4-HBA did not affect cell viability. Finally, we show that 4-HBA is able to activate, at the gene and protein levels, a specific cell death signaling pathway named pyroptosis. Accordingly, the treatment of A549 cells with 4-HBA induces the transcription of (amongst others) caspase-1, IL1β, and IL18 encoding genes. Studies needed for the elucidation of mode of action of 4-HBA will be instrumental in depicting novel details of pyroptosis.Lung cancer is an extremely important health concern that affects millions of people worldwide 1,2 , and any progress leading to improvement of cancer survival rates is a global priority. Patients with lung cancer generally have a poor prognosis with a 5-year survival 2 . Traditional cancer chemotherapy has mainly been based on the use of highly cytotoxic drugs that non-specifically target all dividing cells and may therefore only result in a modest improvement in patients that become immunosuppressed as chemotherapeutics kill all proliferating cells including monocytes and lymphocytes. For this reason, a new trend in anticancer research has arisen focusing on the discovery of new natural drugs that induce specific programmed cell death mediated by immunogenic signals. A recently discovered form of immunogenic cell death is represented by pyroptosis. This pathway differs from that of apoptosis as it is uniquely mediated by caspase-1 (CASP1) activation, which in turn triggers the formation of an "inflammasome", a cytosolic complex with inflammatory features 3 linked to interleukin 1β (IL1β) release for immune cell recruitment.

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The exploration of poorly studied areas of Earth can highly increase the possibility to discover novel bioactive compounds. In this study, the cultivable fraction of fungi and bacteria from Barents Sea sediments has been studied to mine new bioactive molecules with antibacterial activity against a panel of human pathogens. We isolated diverse strains of psychrophilic and halophilic bacteria and fungi from a collection of nine samples from sea sediment. Following a full bioassay-guided approach, we isolated a new promising polyextremophilic marine fungus strain 8Na, identified as Aspergillus protuberus MUT 3638, possessing the potential to produce antimicrobial agents. This fungus, isolated from cold seawater, was able to grow in a wide range of salinity, pH and temperatures. The growth conditions were optimised and scaled to fermentation, and its produced extract was subjected to chemical analysis. The active component was identified as bisvertinolone, a member of sorbicillonoid family that was found to display significant activity against Staphylococcus aureus with a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 30 μg/mL.