Marine actinomycetes: An endless source of potentially therapeutic novel secondary metabolites and other bioactive compounds

Actinomycetes provide a potentially limitless source of novel bioactive compound, possessing a wide range of potential therapeutic uses. Around 25,000 microbial secondary metabolites have been recog-nized; actinomycetes produce some 75%, of them, with fungi yielding 15%, Bacillus spp. 6%, and other bac-teria producing around 1-3%. Species of Streptomyces provide 50-60 percent of the known antibiotics. Over the last seventy or so years, a vast array of microorganisms has been isolated from soils and other readily accessible environments and the screened for antibiotics. Such screening programs have signifi-cantly reduced the likelihood that novel antimicrobial compounds, particularly active against drug resis-tant species, will now be found. Fortunately, unusual marine environments may act as a future source of actinomycetes and other microorganisms capable of producing new secondary metabolite possessing antifungal, antibacterial, anticancer, insecticidal, enzyme inhibitory and other therapeutic properties. The aim of this review is to highlight marine actinomycetes as a novel source of such potentially critical novel antibiotic and bioactive compounds.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Actinomycetes are a potentially limitless source of novel bioactive compounds with various therapeutic uses. Screening programs have reduced the chances of finding new antimicrobial compounds, but unusual marine environments may offer opportunities for the discovery of new secondary metabolites.