Diversification of animal gut microbes and NRPS gene clusters in some carnivores, herbivores and omnivores

Abstract

The animal gut has a remarkable abundance of microbes. These microbes have strong potential for biosynthesis of promising drug candidates, and these small bioactive molecules often medicate important host–microbe and microbe–microbe interactions. To understand the evolution of the animal gut microbes and their biosynthetic gene clusters, we characterized 24 faecal samples from different herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, by next-generation sequencing of the 16S rDNA V3-V4 hypervariable regions and NRPS. The results showed that the host diet and phylogeny both not only influence the bacterial communities, but also that NRPS gene clusters co-diversified with their gut microbiota. We also found that the animal gut microbiome contains abundant secondary metabolic synthesis gene clusters, which prove to be a potential gold mine of novel bioactive natural products. In conclusion, our results reveal the co-diversity of animal gut microbiota and their NRPS gene clusters, and suggest that potential NRPS natural products are hidden in the animal microbiome.