Current Techniques for the Search for Natural Products in Actinobacteria

Abstract

The actinobacteria, also referred to as actinomycetes, have been the most widely used bacteria to produce industrial interest compounds due to their great biosynthetic capacity to generate structural diversity molecules. The actinobacteria with the most significant biosynthetic potential are the genus Streptomyces, Saccharopolyspora, and Micromonospora containing groups of biosynthetic genes such as polyketide synthase systems, non-ribosomal peptide synthase systems, terpenoid systems, ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide systems, among others. This review focuses on genomic mining techniques and current helpful software to search for new natural products in actinobacteria. Currently, molecular techniques have been developed to improve the isolation of natural products, and bioinformatics programs, many are free to access, have been designed to analyze genes and microbial genomes that predict new molecule production. Thanks to these techniques, new natural products of industrial interest have been found in rare actinobacteria such as Nocardia and Rhodococcus.