Project title: Exploring plant cell co-cultivation as a driver of bacterial

biosynthetic gene cluster activation and evolution.

Project No.: lzp-2025/1-0098

Period: 1 January 2026 – 31 December 2028

Project costs: 300 000,00 EUR

Principal Investigator: University of Latvia (Project manager Anete Borodušķe)

Cooperation partner: dr. biol. Dāvids Fridmanis (BMC)

Project summary:

Endophytes are known for their ability to synthesize bioactive compounds and to mimic the metabolites of their host plants, yet the mechanisms underlying this ability remain unclear. This project investigates whether the co-cultivation of bacterial and plant cell suspensions can provide experimental insight into the mechanisms of chemical mimicry and reveal previously untapped bacterial biosynthetic potential. The aim of the project is to explore plant–bacterial co-cultivation as a tool for expanding bacterial biosynthetic capacity.

Objectives: 1) Develop library of reporter-tagged biosynthetic gene promoters of Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) and screen the library to optimize co-cultivation conditions,

2) Investigate the frequency and molecular characteristics of genomic mutations in S. coelicolor during adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) in response to cross-kingdom co-cultivation with plant cell suspensions,

3) Explore activation of silent BGCs of bacterial strains of high biosynthetic potential using metabolomics and transcriptomics of plant cell and bacterial co-cultures.

This research will provide new fundamental knowledge about the basic mechanisms of chemical interactions between endophytes and plants and will promote the repurposing of microbial resources for applications in the production of bioactive compounds.

Information published 05.01.2026.