Building upon the foundational insights gained from this study, our future research will transition from exploratory analysis to targeted engineering and application development, guided by the following key directions:
1. Development of Chassis Tools: Beyond strain isolation, we plan to establish a suite of synthetic biology tools (promoters, regulatory elements, CRISPR-based editing systems) optimized for thermophilic Bacillus, creating a versatile platform for pathway engineering.
2. Engineering and Optimization of the Chassis Strain: The identified thermotolerant Bacillus strains will be genetically engineered to become dedicated production hosts. By integrating omics data and computational modeling, we aim to redesign metabolic fluxes to enhance the production efficiency of long-chain and branched polyamines. This involves the modular assembly and heterologous expression of the mined high-performance polyamine synthase genes (e.g., spermidine synthase). We will further employ pathway engineering to optimize precursor flux (e.g., from ornithine) and delete competing metabolic pathways to maximize the yield of target specialized polyamines.
3. Expansion of the Polyamine Portfolio: Moving beyond the initially identified pathways, we will utilize our established metagenomic database and multi-omics platform to discover and characterize novel enzymes for the biosynthesis of a broader range of long-chain and branched-chain polyamines, thereby diversifying the portfolio of accessible bioactive molecules.