Abstract
BackgroundActinobacteria are famous for the production of unique secondary metabolites that help in controlling the continuously emerging drug resistance all over the globe. This study aimed at the investigation of an extreme environment the Cholistan desert, located in southern Punjab, Pakistan, for actinobacterial diversity and their activity against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The Cholistan desert is a sub-tropical and arid ecosystem with harsh environment, limited rainfall and low humidity. The 20 soil and sand samples were collected from different locations in the desert and the actinobacterial strains were selectively isolated. The isolated strains were identified using a polyphasic taxonomic approach including morphological, biochemical, physiological characterization, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and by 16S rRNA gene sequencing.ResultsA total of 110 desert actinobacterial strains were recovered, which were found to be belonging to 3 different families of the order Actinomycetales, including the family Streptomycetaceae, family Pseudonocardiaceae and the family Micrococcaceae. The most frequently isolated genus was Streptomyces along with the genera Pseudonocardia and Arthrobacter. The isolated strains exhibited promising antimicrobial activity against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) with zone of inhibition in the range of 9–32 mm in antimicrobial screening assays. The chemical profiling by thin layer chromatography, HPLC-UV/Vis and LC-MS analysis depicted the presence of different structural classes of antibiotics.ConclusionThe study revealed that Cholistan desert harbors immense actinobacterial diversity and most of the strains produce structurally diverse bioactive secondary metabolites, which are a promising source of novel antimicrobial drug candidates.
Highlights
Actinobacteria are famous for the production of unique secondary metabolites that help in controlling the continuously emerging drug resistance all over the globe
This study reports a detailed account of the search and screening of the unique and extreme ecological niche; the Cholistan desert, Pakistan for the culture-able spore forming actinobacterial diversity, along with the in depth chemical profiling of the bioactive compounds produced by them
The results showed that the diverse spore forming actinobacterial strains are present in this harsh ecological niche and most of them are capable of producing variety of structurally diverse compounds
Summary
Actinobacteria are famous for the production of unique secondary metabolites that help in controlling the continuously emerging drug resistance all over the globe. The 20 soil and sand samples were collected from different locations in the desert and the actinobacterial strains were selectively isolated. The actinomycetes thriving in harsh environments have the capability to endure the extreme temperature, drought conditions and to produce very unique antibacterial compounds. But those present in unexplored habitats may have some unique characteristics to live in such habitats and to produce unique secondary metabolites [4]. These are abundantly present in soil of different types, but the arid habitats like deserts are becoming the target ecosystems for their search because of the uniqueness of environmental conditions
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