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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Advanced Science

Unveiling the Taxonomic Diversity and Unprecedented Biosynthetic Treasure of the Phylum Myxococcota

  • Amay Ajaykumar Agrawal1,2,3
  • Ronald Garcia4,5
  • Guangyi Chen1,2,3
  • Chantal D. Bader4,6
  • Peter Sullivan4,7
  • Alexander Popoff4
  • Daniel Krug4
  • Maja Hunter4
  • Sebastian Walesch4
  • Emilia Oueis4
  • Christine Frank4
  • Haowen Zhao4
14 more authors
  • Joachim J. Hug4
  • Sebastian Keller3
  • Pascal Hirsch8,9
  • Azat Tagirdzhanov1,10
  • Tatiana Malygina3
  • Mary Victory Gutierrez11,4
  • Alexey A. Gurevich1,12,6,10
  • Judith Boldt5,13
  • Boyke Bunk13
  • Jörg Overmann5,14,13
  • Ulrich Nübel5,14,13
  • Andreas Keller8,9
  • Olga V. Kalinina1,15,6,3
  • Rolf Müller4,5,6
15 affiliations
  1. 1Center For Bioinformatics Saarland University Saarbrücken Germany
  2. 2Graduate School of Computer Science Saarland University Saarbrücken Saarland Germany
  3. 3Research Group Drug Bioinformatics Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) Saarbrücken Germany
  4. 4Department of Microbial Natural Products Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) Saarbrücken Germany
  5. 5German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) Partner Site Hannover‐Braunschweig Braunschweig Germany
  6. 6PharmaScienceHub Saarbrücken Germany
  7. 7MyxoTech GmbH Saarbrücken Germany
  8. 8Chair For Clinical Bioinformatics Center for Bioinformatics Saarland University Saarland University Campus Saarland Germany
  9. 9Department of Clinical Bioinformatics Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) Saarbrücken Germany
  10. 10Research Group Human‐Microbe Systems Bioinformatics Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) Saarbrücken Germany
  11. 11Department of Biology Far Eastern University Manila Philippines
  12. 12Department of Computer Science Saarland University Saarbrücken Germany
  13. 13Leibniz Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures Braunschweig Germany
  14. 14Institute of Microbiology Technical University Braunschweig Germany
  15. 15Medical Faculty Saarland University Homburg Germany
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Abstract

Natural products remain vital sources of therapeutics, particularly anti‐infectives, and members of the phylum Myxococcota constitute an especially rich reservoir for their discovery. Based on decades of microbiological efforts, we present 154 new Myxococcota genomes and propose a revised taxonomy expanding the number of described families from 11 to 28 and genera from 32 to 90. Comparison with an equivalent set from the prime source Actinomycetota shows that Myxococcota possess a comparable biosynthetic diversity, underscoring their promise for large‐scale isolation and sequencing efforts. The vast untapped potential reflected in 2,387 uncharacterized gene cluster families is highlighted by genome mining efforts, yielding four validated compounds exhibiting novel chemistry, including myxolutamids and myxopentacins. We show that many Myxococcota‐derived natural products, such as myxolutamid A and two new sorangicin derivatives, are conserved within taxonomic lineages. New described families thus bear high biosynthetic potential underpinning the importance of precise taxonomic classification guiding targeted drug discovery. To facilitate community access and exploration of these data, we provide ABC‐Myxo (https://tools.helmholtz‐hips.de/abc_myxo/), an interactive web‐based atlas of Myxococcota biosynthetic gene clusters.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{agrawal2026unveiling,
  title = {{Unveiling the Taxonomic Diversity and Unprecedented Biosynthetic Treasure of the Phylum Myxococcota}},
  author = {Amay Ajaykumar Agrawal and Ronald Garcia and Guangyi Chen and Chantal D. Bader and Peter Sullivan and Alexander Popoff and Daniel Krug and Maja Hunter and Sebastian Walesch and Emilia Oueis and Christine Frank and Haowen Zhao and Joachim J. Hug and Sebastian Keller and Pascal Hirsch and Azat Tagirdzhanov and Tatiana Malygina and Mary Victory Gutierrez and Alexey A. Gurevich and Judith Boldt and Boyke Bunk and Jörg Overmann and Ulrich Nübel and Andreas Keller and Olga V. Kalinina and Rolf Müller},
  journal = {Advanced Science},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.1002/advs.76919},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.76919},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Unveiling the Taxonomic Diversity and Unprecedented Biosynthetic Treasure of the Phylum Myxococcota
AU  - Amay Ajaykumar Agrawal
AU  - Ronald Garcia
AU  - Guangyi Chen
AU  - Chantal D. Bader
AU  - Peter Sullivan
AU  - Alexander Popoff
AU  - Daniel Krug
AU  - Maja Hunter
AU  - Sebastian Walesch
AU  - Emilia Oueis
AU  - Christine Frank
AU  - Haowen Zhao
AU  - Joachim J. Hug
AU  - Sebastian Keller
AU  - Pascal Hirsch
AU  - Azat Tagirdzhanov
AU  - Tatiana Malygina
AU  - Mary Victory Gutierrez
AU  - Alexey A. Gurevich
AU  - Judith Boldt
AU  - Boyke Bunk
AU  - Jörg Overmann
AU  - Ulrich Nübel
AU  - Andreas Keller
AU  - Olga V. Kalinina
AU  - Rolf Müller
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/06
JO  - Advanced Science
DO  - 10.1002/advs.76919
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.76919
AB  - Natural products remain vital sources of therapeutics, particularly anti‐infectives, and members of the phylum Myxococcota constitute an especially rich reservoir for their discovery. Based on decades of microbiological efforts, we present 154 new Myxococcota genomes and propose a revised taxonomy expanding the number of described families from 11 to 28 and genera from 32 to 90. Comparison with an equivalent set from the prime source Actinomycetota shows that Myxococcota possess a comparable biosynthetic diversity, underscoring their promise for large‐scale isolation and sequencing efforts. The vast untapped potential reflected in 2,387 uncharacterized gene cluster families is highlighted by genome mining efforts, yielding four validated compounds exhibiting novel chemistry, including myxolutamids and myxopentacins. We show that many Myxococcota‐derived natural products, such as myxolutamid A and two new sorangicin derivatives, are conserved within taxonomic lineages. New described families thus bear high biosynthetic potential underpinning the importance of precise taxonomic classification guiding targeted drug discovery. To facilitate community access and exploration of these data, we provide ABC‐Myxo (https://tools.helmholtz‐hips.de/abc_myxo/), an interactive web‐based atlas of Myxococcota biosynthetic gene clusters.
SN  - 2198-3844
ER  -