Figure. 3. Advanced Microbial Culturing Techniques for Discovering Novel Natural Products:

Figure. 3. Advanced Microbial Culturing Techniques for Discovering Novel Natural Products: Innovative strategies for cultivating previously uncultured microorganisms are unlocking access to new natural products (NPs) they produce. (a) To mimic the complex environmental signals of native habitats, microorganisms can be cultured directly in their original environment using platforms like the iChip. This tool seeds diluted environmental samples into small chambers enclosed by semipermeable membranes, allowing natural interactions to occur. This approach enabled the discovery of teixobactin, a novel antibiotic effective against Gram-positive bacteria. (b) Omics-based techniques, such as metagenomics, offer insights into microorganisms present in environmental samples, enabling targeted cultivation. For instance, a reverse genomics workflow utilized genetic information to design antibodies for capturing specific bacteria, resulting in the successful cultivation of previously uncultured bacteria from the human oral cavity. This method led to the isolation of Saccharibacteria (TM7) species with their Actinobacteria hosts, as well as SR1 bacteria, representing a previously uncultured candidate phylum Giri et al. (2021).