Anna Samoukina and
Nadezhda Potapova use bioinformatics to uncover the evolutionary roots of microbial lipoxygenase functionality and raise the possibility that these enzymes may be the next target in the fight against antibiotic resistance.
Fig: Evolutionary network of bacterial and eukaryotic lipoxygenases with ecophysiology markers near each cluster: green markers depict multicellular organisms, red ones show opportunistic and nosocomial pathogens, black markers depict unknown functions. It is clearly visible that lipoxygenases are largely associated with multicellularity, but one group of clades has learnt to use them for invasion. The red rectangle depicts a “Pseudomonas aeruginosa group” a clade with lipoxygenase superspreading by P. aeruginosa.