Issue 11 of Natural Product Reports is a themed issue on genomics.

Natural products and their derivatives have long served as the bedrock of the modern pharmaceutical industry, providing inspiration for almost half of all new drugs introduced into the clinic. Despite this remarkable hit-rate, we now know that we have only begun to scratch the surface of Nature s secondary metabolome. 

As producers of hundreds of thousands of natural products, plants are the unrivaled metabolic superstars. However, recent, large-scale genome sequencing efforts have revealed that the metabolic capabilities of the bacteria and fungi have been profoundly underestimated based on compounds isolated from standard cultivation procedures. It is now clear from bioinformatics methods coupled with transcriptomic and proteomic analyses that a large fraction of biosynthetic genes fail to give rise to product in the laboratory setting: some genes are transcriptionally silent (or cryptic ) under culture conditions, while others are transcribed and even translated, but no metabolites are detected. Thus, several known microbial sources of natural products, including the actinomycetes, pseudomonads, cyanobacteria and myxobacteria, look even more promising when viewed through the lens of whole-genome sequencing data. DNA sequencing also provides access to the hidden metabolic potential of unculturable bacteria, such as that of endosymbionts living in complex microbial consortia within marine invertebrates. As it is estimated that less than 1% of all microorganisms are amenable to fermentation, this information has the potential to expand dramatically our compound inventory. 

Cover image for the issue, provided by Andrew Schultz, Michael Wilson and Bradley Moore

This issue of Natural Product Reports, comprised of six reviews, aims to provide a detailed overview of insights emerging through genome sequencing into plant and bacterial secondary metabolism, as well as the varied tools being developed to access this rich metabolic diversity (so-called genome mining ). We are arguably on the cusp of a revolution in the natural products field. It is our hope that these articles will serve as inspiration to academic scientists and industry alike, for further discovery and exploitation of Nature s biosynthetic treasures. 

Brad Moore, Kira Weissman, Russell Cox and Joern Piel 
Themed issue co-editors