Editorial: Microbes from marine distinctive environments

Abstract

Microbes from marine distinctive environmentsMarine distinctive environments, such as the deep sea, polar seas, hydrothermal vents, the mesophotic zone, holobionts, and mangroves, are unique habitats for microorganisms, with distinctive environmental properties in terms of temperature, pressure, light, and salinity.Innumerous and distinctive microbial biodiversity in these environments awaits exploration.Major advances in manned submersibles, underwater robots (e.g., ROVs and AUVs), and SCUBA deep diving have enabled extensive observation and sample collection in these environments in recent decades.These environments are important resources for bioprospecting, including drug discovery and novel enzymes.The advent of new microbial cultivation approaches, as well as metagenomics and bioinformatics tools, provide unprecedented opportunities to study microbes from these special habitats.Thus, there are continuous research and development efforts to analyze, understand, and utilize these microbial resources.This Research Topic falls between microbiology and marine sciences.The aim was to gather recent insights into microbes from marine distinctive environments.Symbiosis is very common in marine life.In a holobiont, the host can leverage its symbiotic microbes as producers of bioactive compounds for chemical defense and other ecological purposes.Zhao et al. investigated natural products from a marine-algal-derived endophytic fungus Aspergillus sp.Tennessenoid A, a novel polyketide-terpene hybrid metabolite, was discovered.The compound featured an unprecedented structure, with antifungal activities against eight plant pathogenetic fungi.Hmani et al. have cultivated epibiotic bacteria of Ulva from the Tunisian coast.The enzymatic and antimicrobial activities of Ulva-associated bacteria were evaluated.The report highlighted the enzymatic activities of seaweed epibiotic bacteria, with potential uses in the industrial sector.The deep sea is a unique environment characterized by no sunlight penetration, high hydrostatic pressure, and low temperature.Microbes inhabiting the deep sea have evolved unique biodiversity, chemical diversity, and functional diversity.Lv et al. analyzed secondary metabolites from a deep-sea-derived fungus.Two new indole diketopiperazines, along with several known analogs with anti-microbial and anti-cancer activities, were characterized.These reports revealed the potential of discovering novel microbial natural products from marine distinctive environments for future drug development.Marine sediments are rich in organic matter.Taurine, a naturally occurring organic sulfonate, acts as an important component of organic sulfur in marine sediments, while polyvinyl alcohol is the world's highest output water-soluble synthetic polymer, exerting