Diversity and bioactivity of actinomycetes from marine sediments of the Yellow Sea

Among the 116 actinomycetes collected from marine sediments of the Yellow Sea, 56 grew slowly and appeared after 2-3 weeks of incubation. Among the 56 strains, only 3 required seawater (SW) for growth, and 21 grew well in the medium prepared with SW rather than distilled water (DW), while the remaining 32 grew well either with SW or with DW. Six representatives with different morphological characteristics, including 1 SW-requiring strain and 5 well-growing with SW strains, were selected for phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene. Two strains belong to Micrococcaceae and Nocardiopsaceae respectively. The other 4 strains belong to the family of Streptomycetaceae. In the analyzed 6 strains, one was related to Nocardiopsis spp. and the other three were related to Streptomyces spp., representing new taxa. Bioactivity testing of fermentation products from 3 SW-requiring strains and 21 well-growing with SW strains revealed that 17 strains possessed remarkable activities against gram-positive pathogen or/and tumor cells, suggesting that they were prolific resources for natural drug discovery.