Matters Microbial #80: Do Microbes Make the Best Chemists? February 27, 2025

Today, Dr. Marc Chevrette, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Cell Science at the University of Florida, joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss how his research group can study novel metabolites and even interactions via study of microbial genomes! Dr. Chevrette reminds us all that microbes are the best chemists!

Host: Mark O. Martin

Guest: Marc Chevrette

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Links for this episode

•  An overview of how quickly the field of microbial genomics has advanced.
• How secondary metabolites can be important to antibiosis, cell signaling, and even communication.
• An overview of genome mining, along with another review.
• The program antiSMASH that analyzes genomes for genes involved with secondary metabolites.
• A video describing how antiSMASH can be used to search for possible biosynthetic gene clusters.
• An essay about Dr. Julian Davies.
• An article by Dr. Davies’ group suggesting that antibiotics can serve as chemical signals between microbes.
• The idea of “parvomics,” studying the role of small molecules in how microbes communicate and interact.
• A great article from Dr. Chevrette and colleagues about how to look for biosynthetic diversity using genome mining.
• An article by Dr. Chevrette and colleagues exploring how groups of microbes can interact in remarkable ways.
• Dr. Chevrette’s faculty website.
• Dr. Chevrette’s research website.

Intro music is by Reber Clark

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