Bioprospection of marine actinomycetes: recent advances, challenges and future perspectives

In exploring new sources for economically important products, marine environment draws particular attention because of its remarkable diversity and extreme conditions; it is known to produce metabolic products of great value. It represents untapped source for the discovery of novel secondary metabolites with varying potential such as antibiotic, anti-tumor, antifouling and cytotoxic properties. Marine actinomycetes distributed throughout the marine environment from shallow to deep sea sediments have proved to be a finest source for this discovery. Secondary metabolites derived from marine actinomycetes have proved their worth in industries based on the research on their properties and wide range applications. Spotlight of the review is range of marine based actinomycetes products and significant research in this field. This shows the capability of marine actinomycetes as bioactive metabolite producers. Additionally, the present review addresses some effective and novel approaches of procuring marine microbial compounds utilizing the latest screening strategies of drug discovery from which traditional resources such as marine actinobacteria has decreased due to declining yields. The aim is in the context of promoting fruitful and profitable results in the near future. The recent surfacing of new technologies for bioprospection of marine actinomycetes are very promising, resulting in high quality value added products, and will be de?ning a new era for bioactive compounds with medical and biotechnological applications.