Identification and Characterization of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters from Halophilic Marine Fungus Eurotium rubrum

Abstract

Eurotium rubrum is a halophilic marine ascomycete, which can bear the hypersalinities of the Red Sea and proliferate, while most living entities cannot bear this condition. Recently, a 26.2 Mb assembled genome of this fungus had become available. Marine fungi are fascinating organisms capable of harboring several biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), which enables them to produce several natural compounds with antibiotic and anticancerous properties. Understanding the BGCs are critically important for the development of biotechnological applications and the discovery of future drugs. There is no knowledge available on the BGCs of this halophilic marine ascomycete. Herein, we set out to explore and characterize BGCs and the corresponding genes from E. rubrum using bioinformatic methods. We deciphered 36 BGCs in the genome of E. rubrum. These 36 BGCs can be grouped into four non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) clusters, eight NRPS-like (NRPSL) BGCs, eight type I polyketide synthase (T1PKS), 11 terpene BGCs including one β-lactone cluster, four hybrid BGCs, and two siderophore BGCs. This study is an example of marine genomics application into potential future drug-like compound discovery.

Genome and Metabolome MS-Based Mining of a Marine Strain of Aspergillus affinis

“…More recently the squalestatin S1 producing BGC from Aspergillus sp. Z5 was reported in Paecilomyces penicillatus [72] and halophilic marine fungus Eurotium rubrum [73]. The cluster of both A. affinis strains shared three out of four genes of squalestatin S1 BGC: the core enzyme farnesyl-diphosphate farnesyltransferase (squalene synthase), a DnaJ domain protein and other one conserved hypothetical protein.…”