Invited review on Endophytic Actinobacteria published in “Progress in the Chemistry of Organic Natural Products”

A very kind invitation by Professor Simon Gibbons to us was to prepare a review for the highly reputed series Progress in the Chemistry of Organic Natural Products. Formerly known as Fortschritte der Chemie organischer Naturstoffe, this series features comprehensive reviews on all aspects of natural products chemistry, biochemistry, technologies, theoretical and practical advances, biosynthesis, particular groups of metabolites, among many other subjects. Professor Gibbons initially invited us to publish a review on marine natural products research in Brazil. However, since the review for the Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society was already in press, we proposed a review on the subject of Secondary Metabolites of Endophytic Actinomycetes: Isolation, Synthesis, Biosynthesis, and Biological Activities. A short version of the review was initially written by Professor Fernanda Oliveira das Chagas, now at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, as the introduction of a post-doctoral proposal. However, Professor Fernanda didn’t have time to submit her proposal: she was hired as assistant professor – very nice! We then agreed to write a more detailed and comprehensive review on that subject, which is currently of interest in our group at São Carlos. PhD student Darlon I. Bernardi and two post-doctoral fellows, Dr. Gabriel Franco and Dr. Afif Monteiro, joined the “review team”. We worked hard, since the submission schedule was tight. Professor Heinz Falk, also editor of the series, contributed with several constructive comments on our review. It was published in April this year, thanks to the team effort and to the Springer very effective publishing production. Read the review here, if a subscription of the series is available at your institution.

Streptomyces endophytes with distinct morphologies. Very beautiful picture from the article by Anne van der Meij, Joost Willemse, Martinus A. Schneijderberg, René Geurts, Jos M. Raaijmakers and Gilles P. van Wezel, “Inter- and intracellular colonization of Arabidopsis roots by endophytic actinobacteria and the impact of plant hormones on their antimicrobial activity”, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/222844.