Trends in metabolite discovery from Actinomycetes

Abstract

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 producers of natural products. The discovered metabolites were categorized on the basis of their chemical originality into two groups: variants of known molecules, or original metabolites. In addition, we subdivided the approaches used to discover these metabolites into four categories: bioassay-based screening, genome mining, metabolome mining, or combinations thereof. We present selected examples of the different approaches used and the resulting original metabolites. Finally, we measure the overall trends of discovery in terms of approaches, of the frequency of original metabolites and of the major biosynthetic classes that have been described. Overall, our analysis indicates that new metabolites continue to be discovered from Actinomycetes at a relatively constant rate and that the frequency of original metabolites seems to be approach-independent and relatively constant within the analyzed time period.