mSphere of Influence: Systematically Decoding Microbial Chemical Communication

Laura A. Mike works in the field of bacterial pathogenesis. In this mSphere of Influence article, she reflects on how “Insights into Secondary Metabolism from a Global Analysis of Prokaryotic Biosynthetic Gene Clusters” by P. Cimermancic et al. (Cell 158:412–421, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.06.034) and “A Systematic Analysis of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in the Human Microbiome Reveals a Common Family of Antibiotics” by M. S. Donia et al. (Cell 158:1402–1414, 2014, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2014.08.032) made an impact on her by systematically identifying microbiome-associated biosynthetic gene clusters predicted to synthesize secondary metabolites, which may facilitate interspecies interactions.