Microbes that inhabit the human body make a treasure trove of small molecules that could be developed into drugs such as antibiotics, chemotherapy, cholesterol-fighters and other therapies, a new study reveals.
An analysis of 2,430 bacterial genomes isolated from a wide range of body sites shows that people’s bacteria are capable of making some 44,000 different small molecules, researchers report September 11 in Cell. Small molecules have been shown to be important for communication between bacteria and their hosts. Also, many drugs are small molecules.