About one-third of the world’s population is infected with a deadly
communicable disease called Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium
tuberculosis. A majority of this infected population is confined in South-East Asia,
especially India. With the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains through the
sequential accumulation of chromosomal mutations, the disease has become the 9th
leading cause of death worldwide. The need of the hour is to discover new antiinfective
drugs that have low toxicity, potent activity, are cost-effective, and have a
novel target against the MDR M. Tuberculosis strain, to combat the dreaded disease.
Actinobacteria can be a good candidate for the discovery of new anti-TB drugs as they
are prolific producers of antibiotics that can be used for the treatment of different
infectious diseases. The exploration of anti-infective agents from soil actinobacteria is
exhausting, and the frequency of extracting novel compounds is declining because of
the redundancy in the isolation of bioactive actinobacteria. Nevertheless, there is great
prospect for the discovery of effective anti-TB drugs from actinobacteria that are
isolated from unique, extreme and unexplored/under-explored ecosystems, such as
marine, cave, endophytes from medicinal plants, etc. Anti-TB compounds extracted
from actinobacteria, especially Streptomyces sp., associated with medicinal plants,
marine etc. display good activity against MDR M. tuberculosis and low toxicity
towards macrophage and normal cells. Further exploration of new anti-TB agents from
novel and rare actinobacteria from unique, extreme and unexplored/under-explored
ecosystems that have a novel target against MDR strain, is the need of the hour to
suppress the dissemination and development of TB.
Keywords: Antibiotics, Actinobacteria, Anti-TB Agents, Endophyte, Marine,
Macrophage, Medicinal Plants, Multidrug Resistant, Mycobacterium tuberculosis,
Novel, South-East Asia, Streptomyces sp., Tuberculosis, Unexplored/underexplored
Ecosystem.
