Update on Bioactive Molecules of Actinomycetes

Marine and terrestrial regions are explored from many years and their bioactive compounds are being exploited. As the use of therapeutic novel compounds increases, researchers from all over the world started exploring oceans for bioactive compounds. Actinomycetes, filamentous bacteria have been extensively studied for their therapeutic compounds. They are found to occur in aquatic environments; freshwater and marine habitats. Mostly the marine actinomycetes have attracted a great attention as they have unique metabolic and physiological capabilities. Aquatic habitats enable them to survive in extremes of pressure, salinity and temperature, with the potential production of novel secondary metabolites not observed in actinomycetes, isolated from terrestrial habitats. Secondary metabolites produced from these actinomycetes viz. amino glycosides (streptomycin and kanamycin), ansamycins (rifampicin), anthracyclines (doxorubicin), blactam (cephalosporines), macrolides (erythromycin and tetracycline) and many others are considered to be bioactive. The biological diversity of actinomycetes is enormous in nature with diverse chemical compounds. These diverse chemical compounds have been responsible for great biological activities such as antimicrobial, antimalarial, antidiabetic, antitumor, antioxidant, insecticidal, antitubercular etc. Hence there is a scope of developing these bioactive metabolites as a potent therapeutic drug or lead compounds. However, the potential of actinomycetes is correctly studied though the exact wealth of these is unexplored.