Eustaquio Lab

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🚨There is less than one week left to nominate for the 2026 @natprodreports.rsc.org Emerging Investigator Lectureship! Don't miss the opportunity to recognise a rising star in the field #chemsky #secmet #natprod

⏳Nominations close 19 October

Details on how to nominate🔽
www.rsc.org/standards-an...

Trends in metabolite discovery from Actinomycetes Covering: 2013 to 2023 In this review, we analyzed the scientific literature of the period 2013–2023 that reported novel specialized metabolites from the Actinomycetes, one of the most prolific…

Be sure to read this review, part of our Industrial Perspective themed collection, by Stefano Donadio & co. from NAICONS Srl discussing the trends in metabolite discovery from Actinomycetes #secmet #natprod

Find it in full below👇

Non-model bacteria as platforms for endogenous gene expression in synthetic biology - Nature Reviews Bioengineering Microbial synthetic biology might greatly benefit from the application of non-model organisms, which have been evolutionarily optimized for the production of specific proteins and metabolites. This Review discusses the design and application of endogenous production in non-model organisms.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

#microsky #phagesky #synbio

ICYMI: Nominations for the 2026 @natprodreports.rsc.org Emerging Investigator Lectureship are currently open! #chemsky #secmet #naturalproducts #synbio 🧪

⌛Deadline for nominations is 19 October 2025

Details on how to nominate can be found on our website here▶️rsc.li/npr-lectureship

#secmet

“principles of experimental design that are relevant for all biology research, along with special considerations for projects using -omics approaches”👇🏼

#Perspective in @natcomms.nature.com

woody and buzz lightyear from toy story are standing next to each other with the caption smoke everywhere ALT: woody and buzz lightyear from toy story are standing next to each other with the caption smoke everywhere

Bring an N95 or KN95 mask if you are headed to ASP this weekend and have asthma/sensitive lungs. The midwest is smothered in smoke from the Canadian wildfires right now.

Green genes from blue greens: challenges and solutions to unlocking the potential of cyanobacteria in drug discovery Cyanobacteria are prolific producers of biologically active compounds that are important in influencing ecology, behavior of interacting organisms, and as leads in drug discovery efforts. Here we disc...

Here's a fun perspective piece on Cyanobacteria as prolific natural product producers with great potential for drug discovery. Thanks especially to @philmuslab.bsky.social for ringleading and letting us contribute!
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Come read about our thoughts on why cyanobacteria are underrepresented in drug discovery and how both synthetic biology and native hosts can help.
This was fun to work on with a great group of people who include @dtdoering.bsky.social @danudwary.secondarymetabolism.com @eustaquiolab.bsky.social

Congratulations Shaun!

Pleased to share our new paper out in 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 led by Monika Kumaraswamy, MD, now Chief of Infectious Diseases UTexas-Tyler

Is minimimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) testing the gold standard for antibiotic-resistant superbugs? 🦠 🧫

🧵 1/6

www.jci.org/articles/vie...

Subterranean marvels: microbial communities in caves and underground mines and their promise for natural product discovery Covering: 2014 to 2024 Since the dawn of human history, caves have played an intimate role in our existence. From our earliest ancestors seeking shelter from the elements to more recent generations…

🔓Check out this #OpenAccess review by Lindsay Caesar & co. at @unm.edu & James Madison University, part of our Emerging Investigators collection, on natural product discovery from microbial communities in caves & underground mines #natprod #microsky

Read in full here🔽

NIH Grants Fueled $95 Billion In FY 2024 Economic Activity, Finds New Report National Institutes of Health grants generated almost $95 billion in economic activity nationwide in FY 2024 according to a new report by United for Medical Research.

New report shows that NIH grants fueled $95 billion in economic activity and 407,782 jobs in 2024.

That's not to mention the countless lives that biomedical research has saved.

Show me a better investment than that.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...

🎉Natural Product Reports was delighted to announce last month that @ntiekfidele.bsky.social is the winner of the 2025 Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship!

Read more about Fidele and his research here🔽
blogs.rsc.org/np/2025/02/0...

#NatProd #ChemSky #PlantScience

Evolution‐Guided Discovery of Antimycobacterial Triculamin‐Like Lasso Peptides Triculamin is a ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) lasso peptide with potent antimycobacterial activity, produced by an unusual, non-canonical biosynthetic gene ...

Out today in Angewandte Chemie

Evolution-Guided Discovery of Antimycobacterial Triculamin-Like Lasso Peptides

doi.org/10.1002/anie...

Fun collaboration with the Tørring lab

@thomastorring.bsky.social @tizianasvenningsen.bsky.social @amerrild.bsky.social

It’s so nice to see our Burkholderia host being successfully used to discover new natural products!

Pharma CEOS Speaking Up, Damn It

Drug discovery requires basic research.
Pharma relies on basic research carried out in academia.
How can pharma CEOs remain quiet or worse yet, support the onslaught on basic research?
It is short sighted to say the least!

www.science.org/content/blog...

NIGMS council meeting for 2/6/25 postponed

NIGMS council meeting has been postponed.

This will reverberate.

America's scientific leadership and its innovation economy is under threat.

www.nigms.nih.gov/about/counci...

Antimicrobial resistance: a concise update Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to global public health, with approximately 5 million deaths associated with bacterial AMR in 2019. Tackling AMR requires a multifaceted and cohesive...

The overview of AMR that you always wanted (someone else to write) - amazing!

Truly brilliant paper with great figures! @lancetmicrobe.bsky.social

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

A long post about what’s happening to the science funding agencies in the US and why. As mentioned, this one just kept getting longer even as I kept stripping curse words from it.

www.science.org/content/blog...

Graphic announcing Fidele Ntie-Kang as the Lectureship winner.

We're delighted to announce Fidele Ntie-Kang (University of Buea) as the winner of the 2025 Natural Product Reports Emerging Investigator Lectureship! 🎉 Read more about Fidele and his research here: blogs.rsc.org/np/2025/02/0...

#NatProd #PlantScience

Middle-schooler finds goose poop that has cancer-fighting compound “My mom, auntie and grandma have all had cancer, so it makes me happy that something I found could help,” said Camarria Williams.

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/20... brilliant to see this from Brian Murphy’s lab and their exemplary outreach work

Camarria is already looking forward to her future career.
“I want to be a scientist,” she said.

And Camerria was an author on the published paper pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Strong showing of @scrippsocean.bsky.social and @ucsdhealthsci.bsky.social alums at the first full day of SIMB #NP2025 meeting @chekanlab.bsky.social
@eustaquiolab.bsky.social Neha Garg Kaity Ryan

Discovery of megapolipeptins by genome mining of a Burkholderiales bacteria collection Burkholderiales bacteria have emerged as a promising source of structurally diverse natural products that are expected to play important ecological and industrial roles. This order ranks in the top th...

Interested in genome mining for natural product discovery? Check out our recent paper in collaboration with the Linington lab pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Come join us!!

Merging Flow Synthesis and Enzymatic Maturation to Expand the Chemical Space of Lasso Peptides Many peptidic natural products, such as lasso peptides, cyclic peptides, and cyclotides, are conformationally constrained and show biological stability, making them attractive scaffolds for drug development. Although many peptides can be synthesized and modified through chemical methods, knot-like lasso peptides such as microcin J25 (MccJ25) and their analogues remain elusive. As the chemical space of MccJ25 analogues accessible through purely biological methods is also limited, we proposed a hybrid approach: flow-based chemical synthesis of non-natural precursor peptides, followed by in vitro transformation with recombinant maturation enzymes, to yield a more diverse array of lasso peptides. Herein, we established the rapid, flow-based synthesis of chemically modified MccJ25 precursor peptides (57 amino acids). Heterologous expression of enzymes McjB and McjC was extensively optimized to improve yields and facilitate the synthesis of multiple analogues of MccJ25, including the incorporation of non-canonical tyrosine and histidine derivatives into the lasso scaffold. Finally, using our chemoenzymatic strategy, we produced a biologically active analogue containing three d-amino acids in the loop region and incorporated backbone N-methylations. Our method provides rapid access to chemically modified lasso peptides that could be used to investigate structure–activity relationships, epitope grafting, and the improvement of therapeutic properties.

Our chemoenzymatic synthesis of the lasso peptide Microcin J25 is out now in JACS! We used flow-SPPS to synthesize several sidechain- and backbone-modified precursor peptides and demonstrated their in vitro transformation. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

👇🏼👇🏼 eligible senior students and junior postdocs—apply to our Bridge to Faculty program by January 16 for fullest consideration!! University of Illinois Chicago Micro is a fantastic place to launch a lab! 🧪🧫