Natural products discovery from micro-organisms in the post-genome era†

With the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Drs. S. Ōmura, W.C. Campbell, and Y. Tu, the importance and usefulness of natural drug discovery and development have been revalidated. Since the end of the twentieth century, many genome analyses of organisms have been conducted, and accordingly, numerous microbial genomes have been decoded. In particular, genomic studies of actinomycetes, micro-organisms that readily produce natural products, led to the discovery of biosynthetic gene clusters responsible for producing natural products. New explorations for natural products through a comprehensive approach combining genomic information with conventional methods show great promise for the discovery of new natural products and even systematic generation of unnaturally occurring compounds.