Bioprospecting of actinomycetes for anti-bacterial potential: A Review

Actinomycetes are gram-positive bacteria that have a high GC content compared to their counterparts. Actinomycetes were capable of producing a broad range of secondary metabolites and many of these were anti-bacterial agents. Antibiotics have been known to play a vital role in therapeutics and the clinical management of various diseases. Actinomycetes have contributed more than 70% of known antibiotics in the market today. Apart from antibiotics, actinomycetes also produce several enzymes, enzyme inhibitors, anticancer and anti-diabetic secondary metabolites. Currently, actinomycetes are being studied for medicinal, pharmaceutical, industrial, environmental and bioremediation applications. The current study focuses on a variety of antibacterial agents derived from actinomycetes and new antibiotics under clinical trial along with their mode of action. It also describes the genome mining methods for screening actinomycetes isolates for biosynthetic gene clusters and specific antibacterial secondary metabolites.