Influence of abiotic inducers agents in secondary metabolism of endophytic microorganisms

Abstract

Our group, installed in the Laboratory of Micromolecular Biochemistry of Micro-organisms (LaBioMMi) at Department of Chemistry, UFSCar, since 1996, has been devoted to the study of secondary metabolism of endophytic fungi and bacteria seeking contributions in understanding the accumulation of important natural products in plant tissues, and also to search for new molecules of microbial origin. In our last project, we were dedicated to the study of endophytic microorganisms collected in terpene producer plants. At the end of that project, we initiated studies of metabolic induction in order to stimulate the production of terpenoids by these microorganisms. Examples of abiotic induction of microbial metabolic routes are already found in the literature. Our group has also contributed to some of these data. However, these metabolic inductions are always unpredictable and random. This means that there are not many studies that seek the understanding of these processes of induction. With this project, we intend to not only increase the number of examples, using several different strains and inductors, as halides, transition metal cations, and UV-Vis light, but also to make efforts improving the understanding on mechanisms of these inductions. Through these studies, involving identification of the metabolites induced, and proteomics analyses, even preliminarily, we hope to be able to guess what kind of enzymes acts adapting to different compositions of nutrients delivered and UV-vis. Although it is not the main goal in this project, as in previous studies, substances obtained in these experiments should be tested in few bioassays to evaluate the potential uses of these compounds in human health problems. Antibiose tests may be made at LaBioMMi, and those to detect antiparasitic and antiviral compounds in the group of Prof. Celso Nakamura, UEM, as we have done in previous works. (AU)