MEETA MASAND, GAURAV SHARMA AND EKTA MENGHANI
Abstract
The demand for new drugs to cure the infectious diseases and emergence of resistant strains of pathogens has led to the discovery of more antibiotics. Actinomycetes have been an alluring source of a range of enzymes, enzyme inhibitors, vitamins, immunomodifiers, antioxidants, growth promoting factors, anticancerous substances etc. The microbial diversity of Rajasthan has been assessed by some researchers but the search for unexplored sites and rare actinomycetes in diverse location has begun in the past decade only. Streptomyces thermolilacinus and Streptomyces werreansis have been reported from the soils of Rajasthan. For the first time, the existence of members affiliated with Actinoalloteichus in inland solar salterns associated with a salt lake has been reported. This review is a comprehensive overview of the studies on actinomycetes done so far and expects great industrial and commercial scope of the actinomycetes from Rajasthan.