Studies on the Isolation and Distribution of Rare Actinomycetes in Soil

By M. Hayakawa. 2008

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The search for novel antibiotics and other bioactive microbial metabolites for potential agricultural, pharmaceutical and industrial applications has been, and still is, important (Cross, 1982; Williams & Wellington, 1982; Okami & Hotta, 1988; Goodfellow & O’Donnel, 1989; Labeda & Shearer, 1990; Takahashi & Omura, 2003; Berdy, 2005). Members of the actinomycete genus Streptomyces have long been recognized as prolific producers of useful bioactive compounds (Tanaka & Omura, 1990), providing more than half of the naturally occurring antibiotics discovered to date and continuing to be a major source of new bioactive metabolites (Miyadoh, 1993). However, the rate of discovery of new metabolites from these common and ubiquitous actinomycetes has declined (Kurtböke et al., 1992). In modern natural-product screening strategies, the adoption of improved methodologies for isolating the uncommon and less studied rare actinomycetes is required to avoid re-isolating strains that produce known bioactive metabolites and to improve the quality of the natural products screened (Lazzarini et al., 2001; Takahashi & Omura, 2003; Berdy, 2005). We have developed various methods for isolating desirable rare actinomycete genera from natural habitats (Nonomura & Hayakawa, 1988; Hayakawa, 1990, 1994, 2003; Hayakawa & Nonomura, 1993). These methods include a variety of pretreatment techniques in combination with enrichment techniques that appropriately supplement agar media with selective antimicrobial agents. The present paper reviews a range of selective isolation methods that we have developed for the rare actinomycete genera Actinoplanes, Actinokineospora, Acrocarpospora, Actinosynnema, Actinomadura, Amycolatopsis, Catenuloplanes, Cryptosporangium, Dactylosporangium, Kineosporia, Kutzneria, Microbispora, Micromonospora, Microtetraspora, Nocardia, Nonomuraea, Thermomonospora, Pseudonocardia, Thermobifida, Saccharomonospora, Spirilliplanes, Streptosporangium, and Virgosporangium. Results of investigating the occurrence and distribution of these rare actinomycetes in Japanese soils are also reviewed.

Subfields: Cell Biology, Pharmacology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0f92c0ccb0ac311ad492d0359e8dcaa023a72529