Bacteria produce a wide variety of secondary metabolites, which allow them to interact with each other, as well as with their environment more generally. Also known as natural products, bacterial secondary metabolites can have BIG impacts on human health…both good and bad! Some bacterial secondary metabolites, for example, are toxic to humans (e.g., the foodborne illness-causing toxin cereulide). 🤢 However, not all secondary metabolites are bad guys…some bacterial secondary metabolites are a critical source of drugs, including antibacterial, antifungal, and anti-cancer agents! 💊

Notably, secondary metabolite discovery efforts have focused overwhelmingly on certain bacteria (e.g., Actinomycetes), potentially overlooking other key producers. In our new preprint, we explore the biosynthetic potential of the Bacillus cereus group, an underexplored complex of secondary metabolite producers. 🦠 Using a combined rule- and machine learning-based approach, we mine an unprecedented number of B. cereus group genomes for secondary metabolite-producing biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), and we show that B. pseudomycoides is a particularly prolific secondary metabolite “superproducer”! 💪

Overall, our study represents the largest survey of B. cereus group biosynthetic potential to date! ⭐ You can check out the preprint for yourself here!