Specialized metabolites produced by microorganisms found in ocean sediments display a wide range of clinically relevant bioactivities, including antimicrobial, anticancer, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory. Due to limitations in our ability to culture many benthic microorganisms under laboratory conditions, their potential to produce bioactive compounds remains underexplored. However, the advent of modern mass spectrometry technologies and data analysis methods for chemical structure prediction has aided in the discovery of such metabolites from complex mixtures. In the present study, ocean sediments were collected from Baffin Bay (Canadian Arctic) and the Gulf of Maine for untargeted metabolomics using mass spectrometry. A direct examination of prepared organic extracts identified 1468 spectra, of which ~45% could be annotated using in silico analysis methods. A comparable number of spectral features were detected in sediments collected from both locations, but 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed a significantly more diverse bacterial community in samples from Baffin Bay. Based on spectral abundance, 12 specialized metabolites known to be associated with bacteria were selected for discussion. The application of metabolomics directly on marine sediments provides an avenue for culture-independent detection of metabolites produced under natural settings. The strategy can help prioritize samples for novel bioactive metabolite discovery using traditional workflows.
Keyphrases
- mass spectrometry
- heavy metals
- ms ms
- polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
- liquid chromatography
- data analysis
- palliative care
- organic matter
- small molecule
- high performance liquid chromatography
- high resolution
- gas chromatography
- anti inflammatory
- capillary electrophoresis
- optical coherence tomography
- high throughput
- staphylococcus aureus
- microbial community
- magnetic resonance imaging
- gene expression
- high resolution mass spectrometry
- tandem mass spectrometry
- magnetic resonance
- molecular dynamics simulations
- computed tomography
- dual energy
- simultaneous determination
- dna methylation
- loop mediated isothermal amplification
- anaerobic digestion