Genómica de actinobacterias asociadas avispas sociales para estudio de elementos genéticos antimicrobianos

Antimicrobial resistance within a wide range of infectious agents is a public health threat of broad
concern. Resistance mechanism are transfer within microorganism accelerated, for this reason
nowadays, some pathogens are resistant to all kind of clinical use treatments. As consequence
common infections and minor injuries cannot be treated any more in some countries. Since 2014
World Health Organization warns about the urgency of detecting new treatments from new sources,
mainly antibiotics. Social insects have some features in their social organization similar to human
societies; making them key organisms to search for new antibiotics metabolites. For example: they
live in colonies with thousand or millions of individuals jammed together, in a stable environment
and accumulate waste; similar to humans living in cities. Despite some social insect as ants have
been studied, Neotropical Social Wasps (Epiponini) are unknow, as consequence, knowledge about
antibiotic metabolites produce by microorganisms associated to wasps is limited. For this reason,
in 2017 and 2019 we executed two VIE researches in order to isolated actinobacteria from social
wasp colonies, and tested their antimicrobial activity against different pathogens. As result of these
researches, we obtained actinobacteria from brood cell and workers. This group of microorganisms
is characterized for producing antibiotic metabolites. Also, 75% of isolated strains suppress
pathogen growth. For this reason, the main goal of this research proposal is identified antibiotic
metabolites produce by strains that suppress pathogen growth, through genome analysis and
bioinformatic tools. Actinobacteria sequences will be provide by Pasteur Institute from Paris,
through Illumina technology. Obtain results will be important for the study of novel antibiotics, and
will contribute to understand symbiotic relationships between microorganisms and social insects.

Identificar la presencia de metabolitos secundarios con potencial
antimicrobiano en cepas de actinobacterias aisladas de colonias de avispas sociales.

Biotecnología Ambiental