Antimicrobial potential assessment of Actinomycetes isolated from various soil samples

The global rise in multiple drug resistant bacterial strains indirectly elevated a frantic need to discover novel antimicrobial agents from most promising sources. Due to its diverse ability of producing a variety of antimicrobial agents, actinomycetes hold a promising solution. In this study soil samples from eight sites were collected and pre-treated to eliminate the bacterial and fungal population and then checked for actinomycetes possessing antimicrobial activities towards several bacterial and fungal strains. Out of 42 strains screened from soil samples collected, eight actinomycetes strains have shown potential antibiotic activity against selected pathogenic microbes. GR1 and PR1 have been reported to show antimicrobial activity to 90% of the selected pathogens. Methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of these two strains are further screened for antimicrobial activity against the same pathogens used before. Ethyl acetate extract of GR1 has exhibited antimicrobial activity against M. leutus while the methanol extract of PR1 has indicated activity against C. albicans and the ethyl acetate extract of PR1 has shown antimicrobial activity against all pathogenic microorganisms except K. pneumoniae and S. cerevisae.