The diversity and distribution of specialized metabolite gene clusters within a community of bacteria living in the same soil habitat are poorly documented. Here we analyzed the genomes of 8 Streptomyces isolated at micro-scale from a forest soil that belong to the same species or to different species. The results reveal high levels of diversity, with a total of 261 biosynthesis gene clusters (BGCs) encoding metabolites such as terpenes, polyketides (PKs), non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs) and ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) with potential bioactivities. A significant part of these BGCs (n = 53) were unique to only one strain when only 5 were common to all strains. The metabolites belong to very diverse chemical families and revealed that a large diversity of metabolites can potentially be produced in the community. Although that analysis of the global metabolome using GC-MS revealed that most of the metabolites were shared between the strains, they exhibited a specific metabolic pattern. We also observed that the presence of these accessory pathways might result from frequent loss and gain of genes (horizontal transfer), showing that the potential of metabolite production is a dynamic phenomenon in the community. Sampling Streptomyces at the community level constitutes a good frame to discover new biosynthetic pathways and it appears as a promising reservoir for the discovery of new bioactive compounds.

中文翻译：

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挖掘链霉菌土壤群落专门代谢的生物合成潜力。

关于生活在同一土壤生境中的细菌群落中专门代谢产物基因簇的多样性和分布，文献报道很少。在这里我们分析了8个链霉菌的基因组从属于同一物种或不同物种的森林土壤中以微尺度分离。结果显示了高度的多样性，共有261个生物合成基因簇（BGC）编码代谢产物，如萜烯，聚酮（PKs），非核糖体肽（NRP）和核糖体合成的和翻译后修饰的肽（RiPPs），潜在的生物活性。这些BGC的很大一部分（n = 53）仅对一种菌株而言是唯一的，而对于所有菌株而言只有5种是共有的。代谢物属于非常不同的化学家族，表明该社区中可能会产生大量的代谢物。尽管使用GC-MS对全球代谢组的分析表明，大多数代谢物在菌株之间共享，但它们表现出特定的代谢模式。我们还观察到这些辅助途径的存在可能是由于基因的频繁丢失和获得（水平转移）所致，表明代谢产物的产生是社区中的一种动态现象。采样社区一级的链霉菌构成了发现新的生物合成途径的良好框架，并且它似乎是发现新的生物活性化合物的有希望的库。