Actinomycetes in Medical and Pharmaceutical Industries

Actinomycetes are critical sources of medically important pharmaceutical metabolites. Among the identified actinomycetes, the genera Streptomyces has been investigated for several biomedically important antibiotics, mainly aminoglycosides, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, ivermectin, macrolides rifamycins, and other non-beta lactam antibiotics. Actinomycetes are used in the large-scale production of antibiotics; thus, they have a vast application in the biopharmaceutical industry and can be utilized in the production of antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer drugs. Many ecological niches remain underexplored as evidenced by the dearth of studies and reports. Therefore, it is always critical to recognize the unexplored environments or niches for obtaining novel secondary metabolites or drugs and diverse actinomycetes species. Different groups of actinobacteria produce a variety of bioactive compounds. However, extensive research has to be carried out to identify and recover new bacterial communities with a broad range of secondary metabolites. Recently, profound research work was conducted toward harnessing the rare actinomycetes diversity, and they are usually difficult to isolate. Many scientists believe that these types of rare actinobacteria have the potential to encompass distinctive bioactive compounds, which are prerequisites in the production of novel drugs.