Newly discovered species of bacteria named after MARBLES researcher Lone Gram

The Leibniz Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures recently reviewed their collection of Actinomycetes, a group of bacteria that are gram positive, aerobic and filamentous. As they expected, several of the bacterial strains have turned out to be newly discovered species! In honour of past pioneers and those still advancing the field today, DSMZ has chosen to name the new species after female microbiologists. Among those honoured is MARBLES researcher Professor Lone Gram from our partner Technical University of Denmark (DTU), with the novel actinobacterial species being named Streptomyces lonegramiae sp. nov.

Interestingly, the strain named after Lone was isolated from a soil sample in Japan and carries an extraordinary number of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). BGCs are a locally clustered group of two or more genes that together encode a biosynthetic pathway for the production of a secondary metabolite, likely coding for bioactive compounds or the enzymes that produce these compounds. This distinctive characteristic is why Streptomyces lonegramiae earned the distinction of being named after Lone, who said "I’m honored to have this strain named after me and will look into collaborating with my colleagues at Center for Microbial Secondary Metabolites to include it in future studies." Several members of the Actinomycetes are well known for their distinctive capacity to secrete secondary metabolites having biological properties such as being antimicrobial, anti-parasitic, antioxidant and anticancer.

Lone and her colleagues at DTU are involved in MARBLES WP1, 2, 3 and 5. She leads WP2 - Engineering and Phenotypic Profiling of Marine Microbiomes and Bioactive Compounds.

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Nouioui, I., Boldt, J., Zimmermann, A., Makitrynskyy, R., Pötter, G., Jando, M., Döppner, M., Kirstein, S., Neumann-Schaal, M., Gomez-Escribano, J. P., Nübel, U., & Mast, Y. (2024). Biotechnological and pharmaceutical potential of twenty-eight novel type strains of actinobacteria from different environments worldwide. Current Research in Microbial Sciences, 100290. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crmicr.2024.100290