Phylogeny-guided (meta)genome mining approach for the targeted discovery of new microbial natural products

Genomics-based methods are now commonplace in natural products research. A phylogeny-guided mining approach provides a means to quickly screen a large number of microbial genomes or metagenomes in search of new biosynthetic gene clusters of interest. In this approach, biosynthetic genes serve as molecular markers, and phylogenetic trees built with known and unknown marker gene sequences are used to quickly prioritize biosynthetic gene clusters for their metabolites characterization. An increase in the use of this approach has been observed for the last couple of years along with the emergence of low cost sequencing technologies. The aim of this review is to discuss the basic concept of a phylogeny-guided mining approach, and also to provide examples in which this approach was successfully applied to discover new natural products from microbial genomes and metagenomes. I believe that the phylogeny-guided mining approach will continue to play an important role in genomics-based natural products research.