The novel strategy - the Ψ-footprinting - is based exclusively on analyzing genome sequence data from bacterial active ingredient producers. The advantage of this prediction strategy is that it can be used to screen purely digitally as well as very efficiently for specific potential drug producers and, in some cases, to screen out bacterial strains that are most likely to produce known substances. This makes the process of analyzing and finding active ingredients much easier.
This new methodology is another important contribution in the rapidly developing research field of genome mining for the discovery of new active ingredients. The proof of function was provided by identifying the protein biosynthesis inhibitor amicoumacin from various Actinomyces strains of the DSMZ bacterial collection.
For more information see
Handel F, Kulik A, Wex KW, Berscheid A, Saur JS, Winkler A, Wibberg D, Kalinowski J, Brötz-Oesterhelt H, Mast Y (2022) Ψ-footprinting approach for the identification of protein synthesis inhibitor producers. NAR Genom Bioinform. Volume 4, Issue 3.
https://doi.org/10.1093/nargab/lqac055