ABSTRACT
Viruses cause many important diseases in humans, with viral-induced emerging and reemerging infectious diseases representing a major health threat to the public. In addition, viruses can also infect livestock and marine species, causing huge losses of many vertebrate food species. Effective control of viral infection and disease has remained an unachieved goal, due to the virus’ intracellular replicative nature and readily mutating genome, as well as the limited availability of antiviral drugs and measures. In relation to infectious diseases, the exploration of the marine environment represents a promising strategy in the search for active compounds, whereas there is a need for new medicines, due to the appearance of resistance to available treatments in many microorganisms, specically concerning antiviral activities. Among the microorganisms, the actinomycetes are the gram-positive bacteria belonging to the order Actinomycetales, which play a signicant role in the production of new metabolites (Goodfellow et al., 1988; Demain, 1995). Especially, the Streptomyces and Micromonospora strains have proven to produce novel antibiotics (Omura et al., 2001; Watve et al., 2001; Bentlley et al., 2002). The screening of microbial natural products leads to the discovery of novel chemicals for the development of new therapeutic agents (Bull et al., 2000). So, it is necessary to continue the screening for new metabolites and evaluate the potential of less-known and new bacterial strains so that the new and improved compounds for future use against drug-resistant bacteria or for chemical modication purposes may be developed (Kurtboke, 2005).
