Recently, there is an urgent need for new drugs due to the emergence of drug resistant pathogenic microorganisms and new infectious diseases. Members of phylum Actinobacteria are promising source of bioactive compounds notably antibiotics. The search for such new compounds has shifted to extreme or underexplored environments to increase the possibility of discovery. Cave ecosystems have attracted interest of the research community because of their unique characteristics and the microbiome residing inside including actinobacteria. At the time of writing, 47 species in 30 genera of actinobacteria were reported from cave and cave related habitats. Novel and promising bioactive compounds have been isolated and characterized. This mini-review focuses on the diversity of cultivable actinobacteria in cave and cave-related environments, and their bioactive metabolites from 1999 to 2018.

Dermacoccus abyssi sp. nov., strains MT1.1 and MT1.2 are actinomycetes isolated from Mariana Trench sediment at a depth of 10 898 m. Fermentation using ISP2 and 410 media, respectively, lead to production of seven new oxidized and reduced phenazine-type pigments, dermacozines A–G (1–7), together with the known phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (8) and phenazine-1,6-dicarboxylic acid (9). Extensive use was made of 1D and 2D-NMR data, and high resolution MS to determine the structures of the compounds. To confirm the structure of the most complex pentacyclic analogue (5) we made use of electronic structure calculations to compare experimental and theoretical UV-Vis spectra, which confirmed a novel structural class of phenazine derivatives, the dermacozines. The absolute stereochemistry of dermacozine D (4) was determined as S by a combination of CD spectroscopy and electronic structure calculations. Dermacozines F (6) and G (7) exhibited moderate cytotoxic activity against leukaemia cell line K562 with IC₅₀ values of 9 and 7 μM, respectively, while the highest radical scavenger activity was observed for dermacozine C (3) with an IC₅₀ value of 8.4 μM.

Polylactic acid (PLA) is one of the most commercially available and exploited bioplastics worldwide. It is an important renewable polymer for the replacement of petroleum-based plastic materials. They are both biodegradable and bio-based plastic. Microbial degrading activity is a desirable method for environmental safety and economic value for bioplastic waste managements. Members of the phylum actinobacteria are found to play an important role in PLA degradation. Most of the PLA degrading actinobacteria belong to the family Pseudonocardiaceae. Other taxa include members of the family Micromonosporaceae, Streptomycetaceae, Streptosporangiaceae, and Thermomonosporaceae. This mini-review aims to provide an overview on PLA degrading actinobacteria including their diversity and taxonomy, isolation and screening procedures and PLA degrading enzyme production from 1997 to 2019. Consideration is also given to where to sampling and how we might use these beneficial actinobacteria for PLA waste management.