Many important drugs are produced as secondary metabolites by microbes. Why are secondary metabolites mainly produced in the stationary phase where nutrients become scarce? How can we increase the yield and production of secondary metabolites?
A large variety of secondary metabolites is produced by various microorganisms. For cell they are not of the primary concern, because the secondary metabolites are not essential for growth and reproduction, they only provide bioactive traits to producing organism.They may provide defense (or attack), competition, signaling, or interspecies interactions. Therefore they synthesized latterly in stationary phase.
Please find more on
https://www.intechopen.com/books/secondary-metabolites-sources-and-applications/an-introductory-chapter-secondary-metabolites
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.02495/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5733532/
https://www.cell.com/trends/biochemical-sciences/pdf/0968-0004(80)90071-7.pdf
Yes, secondary metabolites are mainly for competition/ or defending when nutrients are limited. I think secondary metabolites may be also regulated by quorum sensing as well as by the depletion of limited nutrients. So some solutions to enhance sec metabolites production might be to step-wise adding limited nutrients at stationary phase and to deregulate native control via metabolic engineering.
As we know that, the secondary metabolites are not essential for growth purposes, they only producing during defense, signaling, and interactions periods. Therefore this is the main reason why secondary metabolites synthesized latterly in the stationary phase.
Secondary metabolites are low molecular weight compounds secreted by microbes..it act as compitative agent against other microbes, act as metal transporter, act as reproduction hormones and also act as symbiosis agent and all these activities are required at the time of nutrient scarcity that's why microbes produces secondary metabolites in stationary phase where nutrients availability are lesser.
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