S11: To what depths will we go for natural product discovery?

The challenges of natural product discovery are two-fold:  to innovate on the proven paradigms of natural product discovery and to develop new methods outside of the traditional paradigms to overcome their inherent limitations. Firstly, in an attempt to expand the biodiversity base for traditional natural product discovery we describe a systematic study into the secondary metabolic biosynthetic potential of actinomycetes isolated from cave environments.  A combination of in situ and ex situ isolation techniques reveals the taxonomic diversity of subterranean actinomycetes. Isolation of secondary metabolites by chemical and biological screening permits an analysis of the fecundity and diversity of secondary metabolites from these unique ecosystems.  Second, we report on the development of a new technique for discovery of secondary metabolites in crude extracts based on physical properties that are favored in secondary metabolites. Specifically, we demonstrate that the collision cross sectional areas of secondary metabolites betray their presence in complex extracts by ion mobility mass spectrometry, providing an activity free method for structurally constrained metabolite discovery.