User talk:Debananda Ningthoujam

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Revision as of 05:59, 10 January 2007 by imported>Debananda Ningthoujam (Introduction to Biotechnology)
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Actinomycetes: nature's wonderful chemists!



Actinomycetes are a group of bacteria which share some characteristics of bacteria as well as fungi. They are Gram positive, usually filamentous, high GC bacteria. They elaborate more than 50% of the antibiotics in the market during a part of the life cycle known as the Trophophase.

Because of this property they have been intensively explored all over the world in the past several decades starting with the discovery of streptomycin from a species of Streptomyces by Selman Walksman in the 1940s.

As usual terrestrial sources are near exhaustion, people now have started exploring unusual and/or underexplored niches such as lakes, caves, and sea bottoms etc...(to be continued....)