Hid­den treas­ures in the moss

The Leib­n­iz Insti­tute for Nat­ur­al Product Research and Infec­tion Bio­logy – Hans Knöll Insti­tute (Leib­n­iz-HKI) has foun­ded the new inde­pend­ent juni­or research group ​“Meta­bolo­m­ics-guided Nat­ur­al Product Dis­cov­ery”. Under the lead­er­ship of Dr. Jethro Hem­mann, the team is invest­ig­at­ing the role of micro­bi­al nat­ur­al products in the moss micro­bi­o­me and their poten­tial applic­a­tions in medi­cine, agri­cul­ture and biotechnology. 

As the old­est land plants, mosses are par­tic­u­larly fas­cin­at­ing due to their abil­ity to adapt to extreme envir­on­ments. Bac­teria also play a decis­ive role in this. ​“Mosses har­bor a unique micro­bi­o­me whose chem­ic­al diversity could provide us with new nat­ur­al products with a wide range of poten­tial applic­a­tions,” explains Hem­mann. By using meta­bolo­m­ics, the group hopes to under­stand the inter­ac­tions between microbes and mosses at a molecu­lar level. The research field of meta­bolo­m­ics deals with the invest­ig­a­tion of all meta­bol­ic products of cells, tis­sues and – in the case of a micro­bi­o­me – of entire con­sor­tia of organ­isms. The decis­ive meas­ur­ing tech­nique for this is mass spectrometry.

Among oth­er things, the Thuringi­an research group wants to identi­fy anti­mi­cro­bi­al com­pounds that have the poten­tial to be used as new anti­bi­ot­ics or biopesti­cides. ​“With anti­bi­ot­ic res­ist­ance on the rise, it is becom­ing increas­ingly urgent to find altern­at­ives for exist­ing act­ive com­pounds,” Hem­mann con­tin­ues. The group is fun­ded by the Free State of Thuringia by means of the European Social Fund Plus. ​“I am delighted that our research concept has con­vinced the review­ers. The fin­an­cial sup­port for the research group from the Free State of Thuringia is a unique oppor­tun­ity for me and my team to fur­ther advance our sci­entif­ic career,” says Hem­mann. The work of the new group will be sup­por­ted by an indus­tri­al advis­ory board. Experts from sev­er­al Thuringi­an com­pan­ies advise Jethro Hem­mann, par­tic­u­larly with regard to the future com­mer­cial exploit­a­tion of the res­ults – and at the same time get an idea of the skilled work­ers that the Thuringi­an eco­nomy will urgently need in the com­ing years.

New nat­ur­al products from moss micro­bi­o­mes could be import­ant not only for the pro­tec­tion of plants, but also for med­ic­al applic­a­tions: ​“Our aim is to under­stand the role of nat­ur­al products in the coex­ist­ence between microbes and mosses. Using soph­ist­ic­ated cul­tiv­a­tion meth­ods and mod­ern approaches such as gen­ome min­ing and meta­ge­n­om­ic ana­lyses, we are dis­cov­er­ing new sub­stances that have so far remained hid­den from sci­ence,” sum­mar­izes Hemmann.

He also emphas­izes the import­ance of a sup­port­ive work­ing envir­on­ment: ​“I want to cre­ate an open and cooper­at­ive atmo­sphere in our group in which we can devel­op cre­at­ive research approaches togeth­er. Every idea is allowed, every col­lab­or­a­tion is supported.”

The new group relies on inter­dis­cip­lin­ary cooper­a­tion with­in and out­side the Leib­n­iz-HKI in order to com­ple­ment its own skills with the expert­ise of col­leagues and to bene­fit from their meth­ods. With its top­ic, the group fits per­fectly into the envir­on­ment of the Jena Cluster of Excel­lence ​“Bal­ance of the Micro­ver­se”, in which the dynam­ics and func­tion of micro­bi­o­mes in the envir­on­ment are invest­ig­ated. The moss micro­bi­o­me is a new aspect that Jethro Hem­mann and his team will be explor­ing in more detail over the com­ing years.