Nature's Drug Factories: Visualising the Invisible

by Munro Passmore
 

Last week I participated in the biennial John Innes Dubrovnik course on natural products. Among many to­pics, we discussed the biosynthesis of polyketides and non-ribosomal peptides. Having been fascinated – but also mystified – by the process for decades, I took delight in seeing a short animation of the process created by Munro Passmore. Fortunately, he accepted my invitation to write this short description and to share the animation with the STC audience. –Roberto
 

For general audiences, science can often seem impenetrable to understand because of its inher­ent scale and complexity. This is particularly true in the field of natural products – where we seek to understand the processes microscopic organisms undertake to make molecules we later use as antibiotics, anti-cancer agents and more.
 

Due to the vast number of steps involved in these processes, and the fact you can't physically see anything happening, explaining what happens can seem an impossible task! That's why earlier this year Greg Challis, Lona Alkhalaf, and I set out to make an animation explaining the assembly of na­tural products – penicillin for example – as simply and visually attractive as possible.
 

Still image taken from the animation of natural product biosynthesis. Source Mun­­ro Pass­more.

We aimed to strip back the biosynthetic process to its core parts: explaining that bacteria take small "building blocks" from their surroundings and put them together to form chains with varying degrees of complexity. Using the com­monly used metaphor of factory assembly lines, we created a 3D animation (view the animation here) to demonstrate to general au­dien­ces the fascinating mechanisms employed by microbes to create essential medicines used all around the world. This tool has already proven invaluable in starting con­ver­sations about natural products and providing a spring­­board to more nuanced discussions of enzyme-catalysed reactions.
 

We're hoping to continue our mission to make our research more accessible with more visual work in the future, and hope that this is a small step in improving scientific literacy across the board!
 

Munro Passmore is a PhD student in the Challis & Jenner Groups at the University of Warwick, UK investigating the biosynthesis of histone-deace­tylase inhibitors by bacteria. Outside of the lab, he is passionate about science communication and works with a variety of groups to create re­search-centric media.