Composition of nutrient media and temperature of cultivation imposes effect on the content of secondary metabolites of Nocardiopsis sp. isolated from a Siberian Cave.

Growth of human population leads to many global and medical problems. The problems include the crisis of health, antibiotic resistance, drug discovery, etc. Increasing antimicrobial resistance of microorganisms results in the need to screen natural products (incl. antibiotics and antimicrobial peptides) and their producers in different ecological niches. The purpose of this study was to estimate antibiotic activity and biotechnological potential of rare actinobacteria Nocardiopsis sp. The strain was isolated from Okhotnichya cave located in Siberia. Here, we cultivated the strain at 3 temperature modes (13 °C, 28 °C, 37 °C) in 11 liquid nutrient (rich and poor) media. Using modern assays of liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry, we estimated the content and number of produced natural products, distribution of their masses, and potential rate of novel secondary metabolites. We demonstrated that minimal nutrient media with l-asparagine and SM25 media with malt extract were less productive at current experimental parameters. As it was shown, this strain was characterized by antibiotic properties against Bacillus subtilis when cultivated at 28 °C. Also, weak antibiotic activity of crude extracts was found in strain cultivation at 13 °C. Also, we detected a high number of novel amphiphilic and hydrophobic NPs produced by this strain. We demonstrated both the influence of the nutrient media composition and cultivation temperature on biosynthetic capabilities of rare strain Nocardiopsis sp. Finally, high level of natural products that were predicted as novel confirms high biotechnological value of rare genera of Actinobacteria that could be explained by the evolution of microorganisms in the isolated environment of cave ecosystem. © King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2021.