Treasures from the deep: biosynthetic profiling and cultivation of marine host-associated Acidobacteriota

Many of today's antibiotics come from bacteria, but antibiotic resistance is rising faster than new drugs are being found. One of the reasons is that most bacteria in nature refuse to grow in a lab. This PhD project looks for new compounds in bacteria from sea sponges, a long-known reservoir of marine natural products. Specifically in one commonly overlooked phylum called Acidobacteriota. We collected thousands of their DNA sequences to map out what compounds they might produce, and found that bacteria living inside marine sponges carry unusual genes for making new chemical compounds, found nowhere else. Next, we tried to grow these sponge-dwelling bacteria, using chemical clues from the sponge itself to design their growth media. This uncovered several new bacterial species. Altogether, this work points to these overlooked bacteria as hidden chemical treasure troves, and shows what it takes to bring them into the lab.