Biodiversity and potentials of marine-derived microorganisms

The marine environment is a prolific resource for the isolation of less exp loited microorganisms. As a matter of fact, in the sea, untapped habitats e xist with unique characteristics. In addition, the potential contribution o f marine sources to the discovery of new bioactive molecules was recently r ecognized. Biosearch Italia possesses a collection of about 40000 microorga nisms, isolated from different ecological niches. In the search of new bioa ctive entities, investigations were expanded to marine habitats including m arine sediments and organisms. More then 800 microorganisms have been isola ted. About half belong to fungal genera, the others being actinomycetes. Th e frequency of antibiotic activities produced by these marine strains has b een determined. Initial data are encouraging: marine isolates produce antib iotic activities with frequencies comparable to terrestrial ones. These act ivities probably represent a mixture of novel metabolites and known product s previously discovered from terrestrial isolates. Further investigations a re ongoing to assess the novelty of these observed microbiological activiti es. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.