Antibacterial and antitumor potential of actinomycetes isolated from mangrove soil in the Maowei Sea of the southern coast of China

Mangroves are the tidal forest existing in the intertidal zone and usually considered as the special marine ecosystem. In the present study, 452 actinomycetes were recovered from nine diferent sites at Maowei Sea Mangrove Reserve in Qinzhou (Guangxi province, China). Among them, Seventy-four strains were purified for 16s RNA gene sequencing and further characterization. The results indicated that the majority of isolates belonged to the genera Streptomyces, including 17 species. Streptomyces sanyensis was the dominant species (31.1%), followed by Streptomyces griseorubens (17.5%), Streptomyces viridobrunneus (10.8%) and other Streptomyces species. Only one rare actinomycetes, Stenotrophomonas was discovered. The isolation of actinomycetes was obviously related to the type of soil and edaphic conditions. Rhizosphere-associated soils gave almost 62.2% actinomycete isolates, nearly twice as many as the non-rhizosphere-associated soils. In addition, 20 actinomycete strains (27%) presented varied antibacterial activities towards four tested organisms, including two drug-resistant clinical strains (MRSA and VRE), while some species of Streptomyces like S.sanyensis, S.viridobrunneus, S.tanashiensis, S.parvus, S.flavotricini and S.parvulus exhibited remarkable cytotoxic activities. Further bioinformatical analysis of these 29 bioactive strains for secondary metabolites biosynthetic machineries revealed that nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) was detected in 20 isolates (68.9%), whereas type-I polyketide synthase (PKS-I) and type-II polyketide synthase (PKS-II) were detected in 16 and all of the 29 strains, respectively. Hence, our work demonstrated that actinomycetes from mangroves in Maowei Sea Mangrove Reservewere fascinating reservoirs for antibacterial and antitumor natural products discovery.