Bacilli are capable of producing a diverse array of specialized metabolites, many of which have gained attention for their roles as signals that affect bacterial physiology and development. Up to this point, however, this genera’s metabolic capacity has been underexplored. We undertook a deep genomic analysis on 1,566 Bacillus genomes to understand the full spectrum of metabolites that this bacterial group can make. We discovered that the majority of the specialized metabolites produced by Bacillus species are highly conserved, known compounds with important signaling roles in physiology and development of this bacterium. Additionally, there is significant unique biosynthetic machinery distributed across the genus that could lead to new, unknown metabolites with diverse biological functions.
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