ACHAL R. SHEGAONKAR AND NITEEN V. PHIRKE
Abstract
The revival of interest in the biosynthesis of antimicrobial compounds to help combat the rising antimicrobial resistance calls for the discovery of novel antimicrobial compounds from the soil dwelling organisms, particularly actinomycetes. Actinomycetes are considered to be the main source of antibiotics. This paper explores different habitats of actinomycetes, various methods for the isolation of actinomycetes from soil such as enrichment techniques, pretreatment with physical and chemical agents, cultivation and identification of actinomycetes to increase the probability of discovering novel antimicrobial compounds.