Abstract: Actinomycetes are filamentous or non-filamentous bacteriapossessing high G+C content (>55 mol%) in their nucleic acid. The metabolic diversity of actinomycetes is mainly because of large genome having many transcription factors which enable them to direct gene expression according to precise requirements.Recent genome sequence information suggests that this Streptomyces source of novel compounds is still not yet exhausted.Actinomycetes are ubiquitous organisms with wide physiological and morphological diversity and have been isolated from all kinds of terrestrial and aqueous habitats where they can exist as pathogens or in symbiotic associations with plants and insects or as endophytes. Rare actinomycetes are widely distributed in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.Although soil remains their major habitat, rare actinobacteria have also been isolated from sediments, water, plants, stones and animals andthey exist at different environmental settings such as volcanic areas, caves and marine environments. Actinomycetes are producers of secondary metabolites which can be used as medicine. However, there is still an urgent need for discovering novel secondary metabolites to combat the problem of a rising number of resistant pathogenic bacteria and tumor cell linesand increasing need of more efficient enzymes in pharmaceutical industries.
Key words: Natural products, Actinobacteria, Streptomyces, secondary metabolites, resistant, rare
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