Mar. Drugs 2014, 12, 3516-3559; doi:10.3390/md12063516 OPEN ACCESS marine drugs ISSN 1660-3397 www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs Review Emerging Strategies and Integrated Systems Microbiology Technologies for Biodiscovery of Marine Bioactive Compounds Javier Rocha-Martin 1, Catriona Harrington 1, Alan D.W. Dobson 2,3 and Fergal O’Gara 1,2,3,4,* 1 BIOMERIT Research Centre, School of Microbiology, University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, Ireland; E-Mails:
[email protected] (J.R.-M.);
[email protected] (C.H.) 2 School of Microbiology, University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, Ireland; E-Mail:
[email protected] 3 Marine Biotechnology Centre, Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, Ireland 4 School of Biomedical Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA 6102, Australia * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +353-21-490-2646; Fax: +353-21-427-5934. Received: 8 April 2014; in revised form: 21 May 2014 / Accepted: 22 May 2014 / Published: 10 June 2014 Abstract: Marine microorganisms continue to be a source of structurally and biologically novel compounds with potential use in the biotechnology industry. The unique physiochemical properties of the marine environment (such as pH, pressure, temperature, osmolarity) and uncommon functional groups (such as isonitrile, dichloroimine, isocyanate, and halogenated functional groups) are frequently found in marine metabolites. These facts have resulted in the production of bioactive substances with different properties than those found in terrestrial habitats. In fact, the marine environment contains a relatively untapped reservoir of bioactivity. Recent advances in genomics, metagenomics, proteomics, combinatorial biosynthesis, synthetic biology, screening methods, expression systems, bioinformatics, and the ever increasing availability of sequenced genomes provides us with more opportunities than ever in the discovery of novel bioactive compounds and biocatalysts.