Diversity and Antimicrobial Activity of Actinomycetes Isolated from Lut Desert: The Extremely Arid Climatic Zones of Iran

Lut desert is situated in one of the extremely arid climatic zones of Iran and is one of the hottest deserts in our plant with the extreme fluctuation of temperature over a day. The main objective of this study is to characterize the diversity of the culturable actinomycetes and preliminary evaluation of their extracts as antimicrobial components on drug resistant pathogens. Twenty-four soil samples were collected, successively diluted and inoculated into the different culture media to support the growth of most culturable bacteria including actinomycetes. Phenotypic and molecular methods were used for accurate identification of recovered isolates particularly actinomycetes at the genus and species levels. The isolates were also evaluated for their inhibitory activities against drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, Enterococcus faecium, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus. A total of 56 isolates recovered from the samples. Based on phenotypic tests, 41 isolates were identified as actinomycetes, amongst them 8 isolates were active against drug resistant pathogens. Our study revealed Lut desert, as one of the hottest deserts in the world, is the habitat to diverse taxa of bacteria particularly actinomycetes which have potential novel antimicrobial components.