Abstract

Various pretreatment procedures and selective media were applied to assess the optimal conditions for the isolation of rare actinomycetes from soil. Pretreatment of wet-heating for 15 min at 70oC and phenol treatment of soil suspension were the most effective methods for the isolation of those microorganisms. Hair hydrolysate vitamin agar (HHVA) was the most suitable medium for the recovery of rare actinomycetes. Thirty-five rare actinomycete strains were chosen using selective isolation approaches, then morphological and chemical properties of the isolates were determined. The isolates belonged to one of the following genus, Micromonospora, Microbispora, Actinoplanes and Streptosporangium.

• Keywords: Pretreatment; rare actinomycetes; hair hydrolysate vitamin agar; Micromonospora; Microbispora