Saline Waters: a Potential Source of Actinomycetes Possessing Antibacterial Activity

Microorganisms growing in saline environments represent an important source of biologically active compounds. Such environments are distributed all over the world and mainly include oceans, coastal and deep sea locations, soda lakes, soda deserts as well as artificial salterns. Many antibacterial, antifungal, anti-tumor, cytotoxic and photo protective compounds have been isolated till date from these areas. This unique environment is still in its infancy for isolation of new microbes that can produce pharmaceutically valuable metabolites. From ancient times actinomycetes are known to produce secondary metabolites that are being used to treat many infections. Many new species of actinomycetes that have not yet been cultured under laboratory conditions are expected to occur in these environments, and they can be a source of drugs with novel chemistry and promising potential. This review aims to consolidate the reports on antagonistic actinomycetes from different types of saline environments. It will help to open up new possibilities of isolating uncommon genera of actinomycetes from saline systems producing valuable metabolites.