Diversity and isolation of rare actinomycetes: an overview

A renewed interest in the development of new antimicrobial agents is urgently needed to combat the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogenic microorganisms. Actinomycetes continue to be the mainstream supplier of antibiotics used in industry. The likelihood of discovering a new compound with novel chemical structure can be increased with intensive efforts in isolating and screening of rare genera of microorganisms to include in natural-product-screening collections. An unexpected variety of rare actinomycetes is now being isolated worldwide from previously uninvestigated diverse natural habitats, using different selective isolation methods. These isolation efforts include methods to enhance growth (enrichment) of rare actinomycetes, and eliminate unwanted microorganisms (pretreatment). To speed up the strain isolation process, knowledge about the distribution of such unexploited groups of microorganisms must also be augmented. This is a summary of using these microorganisms as new potential biological resources, and a review of almost all of the selective isolation methods, including pretreatment and enrichment techniques that have been developed to date for the isolation of rare actinomycetes.