Bioactive rare actinomycetes from indigenous natural substrates of Andhra Pradesh.

This investigation reports the occurrence of bioactive rare actinomycetes from different indigenous natural substrates of Andhra Pradesh. During the course of our investigation on 20 terrestrial soil samples, 5 marine samples and 3 fresh water samples, a total of 92 rare actinomycetes belonging to Micromonospora, Nocardia, Actinomadura and Thermoactinomyces genera were isolated. The antimicrobial and enzymatic activities were studied for all the isolates. The antibacterial and antifungal activities were studied preliminarily by cross-streak method followed by submerged fermentation studies employing standard cup-plate method for the assay. It was found that 34 isolates (36.95%) showed excellent antibacterial activity and 29 isolates (31.52%) showed good antifungal activity. Proteolytic and amylolytic activities were also studied. It was observed that 79 isolates (85.86%) showed proteolytic activity and 75 isolates (81.52%) showed amylolytic activity.