For hundreds of years, mankind has benefited from the natural metabolic processes of microorganisms to obtain basic products such as fermented foods and alcoholic beverages. More recently, microorganisms have been exploited for the production of antibiotics, vitamins and enzymes to be used in medicine and chemical industries. Additionally, several modern drugs, including those for cancer therapy, are natural products or their derivatives. Protists are a still underexplored source of natural products potentially of interest for biotechnological and biomedical applications. This paper focuses on some examples of bioactive molecules from protists and associated bacteria and their possible use in biotechnology.

数百年来，人类一直受益于微生物的自然代谢过程，以获取诸如发酵食品和酒精饮料之类的基本产品。最近，微生物已被开发用于生产抗生素，维生素和酶，用于医药和化学工业。另外，几种现代药物，包括用于癌症治疗的药物，都是天然产物或其衍生物。对于生物技术和生物医学应用而言，潜在的感兴趣的天然产物仍然是未开发的天然产物。本文重点介绍了一些来自原生生物和相关细菌的生物活性分子的例子，以及它们在生物技术中的可能用途。