ABSTRACT: The EUREMAP project aims to optimise the marine bioprospecting workflow within the European research community, enabling state-of-the-art research and enhanced capacity for academia and industry. This will be achieved by building upon the existing expertise available within the consortium members (EU OPENSCREEN, EMBL, EMBRC, ELIXIR) to synergise capacities and resources to enhance marine bioprospecting for natural products. The EUREMAP platform to be developed will consist of a new multidisciplinary marine bioprospecting workflow that integrates the existing technical capacities, thereby increasing the competitiveness of marine natural products in drug discovery and strengthening the blue bioeconomy in line with the European blue growth strategy. The functioning EUREMAP marine bioprospecting workflow will support the discovery of novel bioactive natural products from marine organisms by utilising novel technology to improve the capacity of European Research infrastructures (RIs).
The multidisciplinary nature of the marine bioprospecting research space necessarily requires integrating data flows between disparate research fields. As such, while data management components within disciplines may be in place, they may not be adequately formulated to provide the basis for a cohesive and integrated data workflow.
The following dataset descriptions are specific to the EUREMAP demonstrator project: "Metabolomic profiling of sea surface microlayer and bio-fouling organisms in marine coastal areas with a focus on siderophores."
Siderophores are metabolites pivotal in facilitating microbes in iron acquisition in iron-scarce environments. Beyond this, siderophores have gained significant interest owing to their potential application in medicine (as a drug delivery system, e.g. the antibiotic Fetroja), agriculture or as a bioremediation agent for heavy metals. Ocean surface water contains low levels of iron, estimated to be in the nM range. This is far below the typical iron requirement of microbes and makes the marine bioresource an ideal starting point in the quest for novel siderophores.
While the open ocean has been explored as source of siderophores (e.g. marinobactins, amphibactin and desferroxamines), the sea surface microlayer (SSML) remains an underexplored ecological niche in this regard, and we argue that the stressors microbial communities in the SSML are subjected to – UV exposure, nutrient competition etc. – may drive the production of unique secondary metabolites, including siderophores. Similar parallels can be drawn for fouling habitats in tidal ecosystems that are exposed to extreme variations in UV, temperature and drought depending on the tidal area. As such, these habitats may provide unique opportunities for siderophore bioprospecting.
In the project's first phase, we will use marine bacterial strains from existing collections to evaluate and refine our workflow. Extracts will be generated, and comprehensive metabolomics analysis will be conducted to broadly characterize the metabolomes while also aiming to identify siderophores. The identification of siderophores will be facilitated by an LC-MS/MS-based post-column metal infusion method. Additionally, promising extracts will be assessed for their antifouling potential. Depending on the outcome of the first phase, sampling missions may be conducted at a later stage to further expand the study.
The project will address the discovery pipeline in several key aspects: initial workflow optimization using marine bacterial strains from existing collections, chemical profiling (metabolomics analyses, 1), and bioprofiling for antifouling activity (2). While not the initial focus, sampling missions may be pursued to expand the study, incorporating sample collection, microbial isolation, identification, and cultivation (3). As sampling and cultivation are not part of the initial project plan, they are not incorporated into this DMP.
