Gabriel Arini

New center will investigate how metabolism “defines life” and shapes disease A BRL 50 million project based at the University Hospital will bring together four research groups that currently operate in different USP units

jornal.usp.br/uspnews/new-...

Discovery and Heterologous Expression of the Soil Metagenome-Derived Lasso Peptide Metanodin with an Unprecedented Ring Structure Culture-independent metagenomic approaches have proven to be effective tools for identifying previously hidden biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) encoding novel natural products with potential medical relevance. However, producing these compounds remains challenging as metagenomic BGCs often originate from organisms phylogenetically distant from available heterologous hosts. Lasso peptides, a subclass of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) natural products, exhibit diverse bioactivities, yet no lasso peptide has previously been discovered directly from a metagenome. Here, we report the discovery and heterologous expression of the first soil metagenome-derived lasso peptide. Expression of its biosynthetic gene cluster in Escherichia coli, followed by mass spectrometry analysis, strongly supported the predicted amino acid sequence and lasso structure of the peptide. Notably, this lasso peptide is the first to feature asparagine as the ring-forming residue at position one. Taxonomic analysis of the corresponding BGC identified an uncultivated member of the Steroidobacterales family (Gammaproteobacteria) as the closest known relative of the potential native host. These findings underscore the potential of metagenomic genome mining to reveal structurally novel RiPPs and to expand our understanding of the natural diversity of lasso peptides.

Happy to share our newest manuscript about the discovery and hererologous expression of metanodin, a new lassopeptide with unprecedented structural features directly from soil metagenomes. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
#secmet #lassopeptides #syntheticbiology

We are super excited that our new paper on microfluidic-based LC-MS/MS fractionation in combination with bioluminescence bioreporters readouts, for compound-resolved bioactivity metabolomics, was just published: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Enhancing tandem mass spectrometry-based metabolite annotation with online chemical labeling - Nature Communications To improve annotation in non-targeted metabolomics studies, authors develop a Multiplexed Chemical Metabolomics (MCheM) platform, combining post-column derivatization with integrated data processing. ...

New paper from the group. Together with Chambers Hughes, Giovanni Vitale and our amazing collaborators, we developed a multiplexed chemical metabolomics workflow to assign functional groups in non-targeted LC-MS/MS data:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Behind the paper story:
go.nature.com/45ljV4d

Awesome!
Well deserved! 🎊🥳

The microbiome diversifies long- to short-chain fatty acid-derived N-acyl lipids Mass spectrometry data mining tools enabled the creation of an MS/MS spectral library containing hundreds of N-acyl lipids, including conjugates with short-chain fatty acids. This resource enabled the...

If you have ever wondered what might happen to short chain fatty acids made by the microbiome. Here is a large class of metabolites and how they link to biology. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

To progress, science must be truly global Building scientific capacity in the global south is key to solving today’s most pressing planetary challenges.

Building scientific capacity in the global south is key to solving today’s most pressing planetary challenges, says Marcelo Knobel, executive director at the World Academy of Sciences.

https://go.nature.com/43WhALs