# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/microbial-natural-products-and-biosynthesis/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis research in the Class of 2026?

The Class of 2026 in Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis reflects a shift from pure genome mining toward functional validation. While biosynthetic gene clusters remain foundational, research is increasingly focusing on heterologous expression, pathway engineering, and data-driven approaches using natural product databases.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 4,273 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Biosynthetic gene clusters, heterologous expression, cytochrome P450, RiPPs |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 25–184 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved September 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | MIBiG 4.0: advancing biosynthetic gene cluster curation through global collaboration | Mitja M Zdouc, Kai Blin, Nico L L Louwen, Jorge Navarro, Catarina Loureiro, Chantal D Bader, Constance B Bailey, Lena Barra, Thomas J Booth, Kenan A J Bozhüyük, José D D Cediel-Becerra, Zachary Charlop-Powers, Marc G Chevrette, Yit Heng Chooi, Paul M D'Agostino, Tristan de Rond, Elena Del Pup, Katherine R Duncan, Wenjia Gu, Novriyandi Hanif, Eric J N Helfrich, Matthew Jenner, Yohei Katsuyama, Aleksandra Korenskaia, Daniel Krug, Vincent Libis, George A Lund, Shrikant Mantri, Kalindi D Morgan, Charlotte Owen, Chin-Soon Phan, Benjamin Philmus, Zachary L Reitz, Serina L Robinson, Kumar Saurabh Singh, Robin Teufel, Yaojun Tong, Fidele Tugizimana, Dana Ulanova, Jaclyn M Winter, César Aguilar, Daniel Y Akiyama, Suhad A A Al-Salihi, Mohammad Alanjary, Fabrizio Alberti, Gajender Aleti, Shumukh A Alharthi, Mariela Y Arias Rojo, Amr A Arishi, Hannah E Augustijn, Nicole E Avalon, J Abraham Avelar-Rivas, Kyle K Axt, Hellen B Barbieri, Julio Cesar J Barbosa, Lucas Gabriel Barboza Segato, Susanna E Barrett, Martin Baunach, Christine Beemelmanns, Dardan Beqaj, Tim Berger, Jordan Bernaldo-Agüero, Sandra M Bettenbühl, Vincent A Bielinski, Friederike Biermann, Ricardo M Borges, Rainer Borriss, Milena Breitenbach, Kevin M Bretscher, Michael W Brigham, Larissa Buedenbender, Brodie W Bulcock, Carolina Cano-Prieto, João Capela, Victor J Carrion, Riley S Carter, Raquel Castelo-Branco, Gabriel Castro-Falcón, Fernanda O Chagas, Esteban Charria-Girón, Ayesha Ahmed Chaudhri, Vasvi Chaudhry, Hyukjae Choi, Yukyung Choi, Roya Choupannejad, Jakub Chromy, Melinda S Chue Donahey, Jérôme Collemare, Jack A Connolly, Kaitlin E Creamer, Max Crüsemann, Andres Arredondo Cruz, Andres Cumsille, Jean-Felix Dallery, Luis Caleb Damas-Ramos, Tito Damiani, Martinus de Kruijff, Belén Delgado Martín, Gerardo Della Sala, Jelle Dillen, Drew T Doering, Shravan R Dommaraju, Suhan Durusu, Susan Egbert, Mark Ellerhorst, Baptiste Faussurier, Artem Fetter, Marc Feuermann, David P Fewer, Jonathan Foldi, Andri Frediansyah, Erin A Garza, Athina Gavriilidou, Andrea Gentile, Jennifer Gerke, Hans Gerstmans, Juan Pablo Gomez-Escribano, Luz A González-Salazar, Natalie E Grayson, Claudio Greco, Juan E Gris Gomez, Sebastian Guerra, Shaday Guerrero Flores, Alexey Gurevich, Karina Gutiérrez-García, Lauren Hart, Kristina Haslinger, Beibei He, Teo Hebra, Jethro L Hemmann, Hindra Hindra, Lars Höing, Darren C Holland, Jonathan E Holme, Therese Horch, Pavlo Hrab, Jie Hu, Thanh-Hau Huynh, Ji-Yeon Hwang, Riccardo Iacovelli, Dumitrita Iftime, Marianna Iorio, Sidharth Jayachandran, Eunah Jeong, Jiayi Jing, Jung J Jung, Yuya Kakumu, Edward Kalkreuter, Kyo Bin Kang, Sangwook Kang, Wonyong Kim, Geum Jin Kim, Hyunwoo Kim, Hyun Uk Kim, Martin Klapper, Robert A Koetsier, Cassandra Kollten, Ákos T Kovács, Yelyzaveta Kriukova, Noel Kubach, Aditya M Kunjapur, Aleksandra K Kushnareva, Andreja Kust, Jessica Lamber, Martin Larralde, Niels J Larsen, Adrien P Launay, Ngoc-Thao-Hien Le, Sarah Lebeer, Byung Tae Lee, Kyungha Lee, Katherine L Lev, Shu-Ming Li, Yong-Xin Li, Cuauhtémoc Licona-Cassani, Annette Lien, Jing Liu, Julius Adam V Lopez, Nataliia V Machushynets, Marla I Macias, Taifo Mahmud, Matiss Maleckis, Añadir Maharai Martinez-Martinez, Yvonne Mast, Marina F Maximo, Christina M McBride, Rose M McLellan, Khyati Mehta Bhatt, Chrats Melkonian, Aske Merrild, Mikko Metsä-Ketelä, Douglas A Mitchell, Alison V Müller, Giang-Son Nguyen, Hera T Nguyen, Timo H J Niedermeyer, Julia H O'Hare, Adam Ossowicki, Bohdan O Ostash, Hiroshi Otani, Leo Padva, Sunaina Paliyal, Xinya Pan, Mohit Panghal, Dana S Parade, Jiyoon Park, Jonathan Parra, Marcos Pedraza Rubio, Huong T Pham, Sacha J Pidot, Jörn Piel, Bita Pourmohsenin, Malik Rakhmanov, Sangeetha Ramesh, Michelle H Rasmussen, Adriana Rego, Raphael Reher, Andrew J Rice, Augustin Rigolet, Adriana Romero-Otero, Luis Rodrigo Rosas-Becerra, Pablo Y Rosiles, Adriano Rutz, Byeol Ryu, Libby-Ann Sahadeo, Murrel Saldanha, Luca Salvi, Eduardo Sánchez-Carvajal, Christian Santos-Medellin, Nicolau Sbaraini, Sydney M Schoellhorn, Clemens Schumm, Ludek Sehnal, Nelly Selem, Anjali D Shah, Tania K Shishido, Simon Sieber, Velina Silviani, Garima Singh, Hemant Singh, Nika Sokolova, Eva C Sonnenschein, Margherita Sosio, Sven T Sowa, Karin Steffen, Evi Stegmann, Alena B Streiff, Alena Strüder, Frank Surup, Tiziana Svenningsen, Douglas Sweeney, Judit Szenei, Azat Tagirdzhanov, Bin Tan, Matthew J Tarnowski, Barbara R Terlouw, Thomas Rey, Nicola U Thome, Laura Rosina Torres Ortega, Thomas Tørring, Marla Trindade, Andrew W Truman, Marie Tvilum, Daniel W Udwary, Christoph Ulbricht, Lisa Vader, Gilles P van Wezel, Max Walmsley, Randika Warnasinghe, Heiner G Weddeling, Angus N M Weir, Katherine Williams, Sam E Williams, Thomas E Witte, Steffaney M Wood Rocca, Keith Yamada, Dong Yang, Dongsoo Yang, Jingwei Yu, Zhenyi Zhou, Nadine Ziemert, Lukas Zimmer, Alina Zimmermann, Christian Zimmermann, Justin J J van der Hooft, Roger G Linington, Tilmann Weber, Marnix H Medema | Mitja M Zdouc | Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands | Nucleic Acids Research | 184 | 10.1093/nar/gkae1115 |
| 2 | COCONUT 2.0: a comprehensive overhaul and curation of the collection of open natural products database | Venkata Chandrasekhar, Kohulan Rajan, Sri Ram Sagar Kanakam, Nisha Sharma, Viktor Weißenborn, Jonas Schaub, Christoph Steinbeck | Christoph Steinbeck | Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany | Nucleic Acids Research | 104 | 10.1093/nar/gkae1063 |
| 3 | Characterization and heterologous reconstitution of Taxus biosynthetic enzymes leading to baccatin III | Bin Jiang, Lei Gao, Haijun Wang, Yaping Sun, Xiaolin Zhang, Han Ke, Shengchao Liu, Pengchen Ma, Qinggang Liao, Yue Wang, Huan Wang, Yugeng Liu, Ran Du, Torben Rogge, Wei Li, Yi Shang, K N Houk, Xingyao Xiong, Daoxin Xie, Sanwen Huang, Xiaoguang Lei, Jianbin Yan | Bin Jiang, Lei Gao, Haijun Wang, Ya‐Ping Sun, Huan Wang, Xiaoguang Lei, Jianbin Yan | Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China | Science | 103 | 10.1126/science.adj3484 |
| 4 | Sophisticated natural products as antibiotics | Kim Lewis, Richard E Lee, Heike Brötz-Oesterhelt, Sebastian Hiller, Marina V Rodnina, Tanja Schneider, Markus Weingarth, Ingo Wohlgemuth | Kim Lewis, Richard Lee | Northeastern University, United States | Nature | 90 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07530-w |
| 5 | The Natural Products Atlas 3.0: extending the database of microbially derived natural products | Ella F Poynton, Jeffrey A van Santen, Matthew Pin, Marla Macias Contreras, Emily McMann, Jonathan Parra, Brandon Showalter, Liana Zaroubi, Katherine R Duncan, Roger G Linington | Roger G. Linington | Simon Fraser University, Canada | Nucleic Acids Research | 78 | 10.1093/nar/gkae1093 |
| 6 | Complete biosynthesis of QS-21 in engineered yeast | Yuzhong Liu, Xixi Zhao, Fei Gan, Xiaoyue Chen, Kai Deng, Samantha A Crowe, Graham A Hudson, Michael S Belcher, Matthias Schmidt, Maria C T Astolfi, Suzanne M Kosina, Bo Pang, Minglong Shao, Jing Yin, Sasilada Sirirungruang, Anthony T Iavarone, James Reed, Laetitia B B Martin, Amr El-Demerdash, Shingo Kikuchi, Rajesh Chandra Misra, Xiaomeng Liang, Michael J Cronce, Xiulai Chen, Chunjun Zhan, Ramu Kakumanu, Edward E K Baidoo, Yan Chen, Christopher J Petzold, Trent R Northen, Anne Osbourn, Henrik Scheller, Jay D Keasling | Jay D. Keasling | University of California, Berkeley, United States | Nature | 73 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07345-9 |
| 7 | Complete biosynthesis of the potent vaccine adjuvant QS-21 | Laetitia B B Martin, Shingo Kikuchi, Martin Rejzek, Charlotte Owen, James Reed, Anastasia Orme, Rajesh C Misra, Amr El-Demerdash, Lionel Hill, Hannah Hodgson, Yuzhong Liu, Jay D Keasling, Robert A Field, Andrew W Truman, Anne Osbourn | Anne Osbourn | John Innes Centre, United Kingdom | Nature Chemical Biology | 64 | 10.1038/s41589-023-01538-5 |
| 8 | Natural Products Have Increased Rates of Clinical Trial Success throughout the Drug Development Process | Daniel Domingo-Fernández, Yojana Gadiya, António José Preto, Christoph A Krettler, Sarah Mubeen, August Allen, David Healey, Viswa Colluru | Daniel Domingo‐Fernándéz | Enveda Biosciences, United States | Journal of Natural Products | 64 | 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.4c00581 |
| 9 | Evolution-inspired engineering of nonribosomal peptide synthetases | Kenan A J Bozhüyük, Leonard Präve, Carsten Kegler, Leonie Schenk, Sebastian Kaiser, Christian Schelhas, Yan-Ni Shi, Wolfgang Kuttenlochner, Max Schreiber, Joshua Kandler, Mohammad Alanjary, T M Mohiuddin, Michael Groll, Georg K A Hochberg, Helge B Bode | Kenan A. J. Bozhüyük, Leonard Präve, Carsten Kegler, Leonie Schenk, Helge B. Bode | Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany | Science | 56 | 10.1126/science.adg4320 |
| 10 | Reconstitution of early paclitaxel biosynthetic network | Jack Chun-Ting Liu, Ricardo De La Peña, Christian Tocol, Elizabeth S Sattely | Elizabeth S. Sattely | Stanford University, United States | Nature Communications | 42 | 10.1038/s41467-024-45574-8 |
| 11 | Evolution-guided engineering of trans -acyltransferase polyketide synthases | Mathijs F. J. Mabesoone, Stefan Leopold‐Messer, Hannah A. Minas, Clara Chepkirui, Pornsuda Chawengrum, Silke Reiter, Roy A. Meoded, Sarah Wolf, Ferdinand Genz, Nancy Magnus, Birgit Piechulla, Allison S. Walker, Jörn Piel | Mathijs F. J. Mabesoone, Stefan Leopold‐Messer, Hannah A. Minas, Jörn Piel | Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland | Science | 39 | 10.1126/science.adj7621 |
| 12 | Cell-free biosynthesis and engineering of ribosomally synthesized lanthipeptides | Wan-Qiu Liu, Xiangyang Ji, Fang Ba, Yufei Zhang, Huiling Xu, Shuhui Huang, Xiao Zheng, Yifan Liu, Shengjie Ling, Michael C Jewett, Jian Li | Yifan Liu, Shengjie Ling, Michael C. Jewett, Jian Li | ShanghaiTech University, China | Nature Communications | 39 | 10.1038/s41467-024-48726-y |
| 13 | Green synthesis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) by Streptomyces baarnensis and its active metabolite (Ka): a promising combination against multidrug-resistant ESKAPE pathogens and cytotoxicity | Mohamed H Kalaba, Gamal M El-Sherbiny, Emad A Ewais, Osama M Darwesh, Saad A Moghannem | Gamal M. El-Sherbiny | Al-Azhar University, Egypt | BMC Microbiology | 35 | 10.1186/s12866-024-03392-4 |
| 14 | Effectiveness of molecular fingerprints for exploring the chemical space of natural products | Davide Boldini, Davide Ballabio, Viviana Consonni, Roberto Todeschini, Francesca Grisoni, Stephan A Sieber | Davide Boldini | Technical University of Munich, Germany | Journal of Cheminformatics | 32 | 10.1186/s13321-024-00830-3 |
| 15 | BGC Atlas: a web resource for exploring the global chemical diversity encoded in bacterial genomes | Caner Bağcı, Matin Nuhamunada, Hemant Goyat, Casimir Ladanyi, Ludek Sehnal, Kai Blin, Satria A Kautsar, Azat Tagirdzhanov, Alexey Gurevich, Shrikant Mantri, Christian von Mering, Daniel Udwary, Marnix H Medema, Tilmann Weber, Nadine Ziemert | Nadine Ziemert | University of Tübingen, Germany | Nucleic Acids Research | 31 | 10.1093/nar/gkae953 |
| 16 | Advanced technologies targeting isolation and characterization of natural products | Shu-Hui Dong, Zhi-Kang Duan, Ming Bai, Xiao‐Xiao Huang, Shao‐Jiang Song | Xiao‐Xiao Huang, Shao‐Jiang Song | Engineering Research Center of Natural Medicine Active Molecule Research & Development, China | TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry | 30 | 10.1016/j.trac.2024.117711 |
| 17 | A widespread family of ribosomal peptide metallophores involved in bacterial adaptation to metal stress | Laura Leprevost, Sophie Jünger, Guy Lippens, Céline Guillaume, Giuseppe Sicoli, Lydie Oliveira, Enrico Falcone, Emiliano de Santis, Alex Rivera-Millot, Gabriel Billon, Francesco Stellato, Céline Henry, Rudy Antoine, Séverine Zirah, Svetlana Dubiley, Yanyan Li, Françoise Jacob-Dubuisson | Laura Leprévost, Sophie Jünger, Guy Lippens, Rudy Antoine, Séverine Zirah, Svetlana Dubiley, Yanyan Li, Françoise Jacob‐Dubuisson | Univ. Lille, France | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 28 | 10.1073/pnas.2408304121 |
| 18 | Structures and mechanism of condensation in non-ribosomal peptide synthesis | Angelos Pistofidis, Pengchen Ma, Zihao Li, Kim Munro, K N Houk, T Martin Schmeing | T.M. Schmeing | McGill University, Canada | Nature | 28 | 10.1038/s41586-024-08417-6 |
| 19 | MetOrigin 2.0: Advancing the discovery of microbial metabolites and their origins | Gang Yu, Cuifang Xu, Xiaoyan Wang, Feng Ju, Junfen Fu, Yan Ni | Junfen Fu, Yan Ni | Children's Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine, China | iMeta | 27 | 10.1002/imt2.246 |
| 20 | A treasure trove of 1034 actinomycete genomes | Tue Sparholt Jørgensen, Omkar S Mohite, Eva B Sterndorff, Maria Alvarez-Arevalo, Kai Blin, Thomas J Booth, Pep Charusanti, David Faurdal, Troels Ø Hansen, Matin Nuhamunada, Anna-Sophie Mourched, Bernhard Ø Palsson, Tilmann Weber | Tilmann Weber | Technical University of Denmark, Denmark | Nucleic Acids Research | 25 | 10.1093/nar/gkae523 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The Class of 2026 is characterized by a strong emphasis on the functional characterization and optimization of microbial natural products. The landscape is dominated by research on **biosynthetic gene clusters** (present in 23.9% of top papers) and **heterologous expression** (21.7%), underscoring the critical need to activate and produce cryptic metabolites. 

Enzymatic mechanisms and tailored modifications also feature prominently, with **cytochrome P450** enzymes (13.0%) and **ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs)** (13.0%) representing key areas of structural diversification. Furthermore, the robust presence of **metabolic engineering** (10.9%) and **nonribosomal peptide synthetases** (6.5%) indicates a persistent focus on rewiring cellular metabolism and deciphering complex modular assembly lines to discover novel bioactive compounds.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

A compelling shift is underway from initial computational discovery to active downstream biosynthesis. The most striking decline was observed in **genome mining**, which fell precipitously from 27.1% to just 6.5%. Similarly, mentions of **biosynthetic gene clusters** contracted from 39.6% to 23.9%.

Conversely, researchers are increasingly prioritizing experimental validation and production. **Heterologous expression** expanded 1.3-fold to 21.7%, while **pathway engineering** jumped more than 3-fold to 6.5%. The data also highlights a surge in computational infrastructure supporting this work: topics such as **natural product databases**, the **COCONUT database**, and **co-evolution analysis** emerged strongly in 2024 after being absent among top papers in the previous cohort, reflecting a maturation of the field toward more integrated, data-driven synthetic biology.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Microbial Natural Products and Biosynthesis Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/microbial-natural-products-and-biosynthesis/2026. Accessed 2026-10-29.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
```