Actinomycetes: Implications in health and disease

New drug discovery against variety of infections is a major challenge to scientific community. Enumerable numbers of antibiotics have been known to be produced by actinomycetes, still the existence of multi-drug resistant microbial strains along with the increase in opportunistic infections in the immune-compromised host and pose a major threat to human life. The need for new, safe and more effective broad spectrum antibiotic is the key to all the above questions. In the recent years, we have seen a surge of actinomycetes producing number of bioactive secondary metabolites. The majority of these compounds have demonstrated one or more bioactivities with many being developed into drugs for treatment of wide range of diseases in humans and other sectors. Considering the immense potential of these actinomycetes in the discovery of lead compounds, current review will discuss about the diverse roles of actinomycetes especially in context of the mechanism pertaining to human health and disease.