All organisms produce specialized organic molecules, ranging from small volatile chemicals to large gene-encoded peptides, that have evolved to provide them with diverse cellular and ecological functions. As natural products, they are broadly applied in medicine, agriculture and nutrition. The rapid accumulation of genomic information has revealed that the metabolic capacity of virtually all organisms is vastly underappreciated. Pioneered mainly in bacteria and fungi, genome mining technologies are accelerating metabolite discovery. Recent efforts are now being expanded to all life forms, including protists, plants and animals, and new integrative omics technologies are enabling the increasingly effective mining of this molecular diversity.

所有生物体都会产生专门的有机分子，从小的挥发性化学物质到大的基因编码肽，这些分子的进化为它们提供了多种细胞和生态功能。作为天然产物，它们广泛应用于医学、农业和营养领域。基因组信息的快速积累表明，几乎所有生物体的代谢能力都被大大低估了。基因组挖掘技术主要在细菌和真菌领域首创，正在加速代谢物的发现。最近的努力现已扩展到所有生命形式，包括原生生物、植物和动物，新的综合组学技术正在使这种分子多样性的挖掘变得越来越有效。