Recovery of the highest rate of biodiversity and frequency of the actinobacterial isolates from less-explored environments can maximize hit rate to find unique bioactive strains (
Zotchev et al., 2017). For this purpose, a combination of isolation media and treatments were implemented to describe the distribution pattern of cultivable actinobacteria in the exploration area. This pattern revealed that actinobacterial populations frequently distributed in the shallowest and nearshore stations. Moreover,
Streptomyces-like isolates followed by a depth dependent frequency pattern (
Fig. 2). Hence, the number of
Streptomyces-like isolates decreased with increasing distance from shore. In spite of the fact that environmental factors could be shaped structure of bacterial community in marine sediments, our results showed that the observed distribution pattern of actinobacteria could not be influenced by environmental factors. Our results revealed that pH, salinity, oxygen and temperature did not show drastic variation between all stations (
Table 3). In particular, variation of these environmental parameters in the deeper stations cannot limit the distribution of
Streptomyces compared with other actinomycetes. Accordingly, this depth dependent pattern could be influenced by runoff currents such as the Jagin, Minab, Gabrik, Sadij Rivers and seasonal streams that carry terrestrial material including high frequency of
Streptomyces. The higher prevalence of
Streptomyces in terrestrial environments rather marine environments was previously approved (
Kurtbӧke, 2017). Therefore, runoff sedimentation can influence the distribution pattern of
Streptomyces in coastal sediments, although other factors should also be considered. These findings are consistent with the reported distribution pattern of actinobacteria in marine sediments of the Oman Sea, Trondheim Fjord, Persian Gulf and Bahamas (
Bredholt et al., 2008;
Gozari et al., 2016b;
Gozari et al., 2019b;
Jensen et al., 1991). The results of selective isolation process showed that M
4 medium recovered the highest frequency of actinobacterial isolates, although M
3 (56.09%) and M
5 (62.50%) media exhibited high isolation rate of the non-
Streptomyces-like isolates that might be because of their low organic content and their close composition to the marine environment. Hence, many of the undesired fast growing bacteria could not grow on the above mentioned minimal media (
Doelle, 2014;
Mann and Lazier, 2013). Among the treatments, heating could remove fast growing temperature-sensitive bacteria in the favor of actinobacterial isolates. The efficiency of heat treatment to maximize the isolation rate of actinobacteria was also shown in other studies (
Gozari et al., 2016a;
Jensen et al., 2005;
Mincer et al., 2005). The selective performance of phenol treatment in the isolation of non-
Streptomyces like isolates is due to the destruction of polyamide polymers in the protein structures of
Streptomyces by phenol, while many of the non-
Streptomyces isolates show lower sensitivity to phenol due to their lipid-rich cell wall (
Istianto et al., 2012).
Qiu et al. (2008) have reported the selective effect of phenol treatment in favor of
Micromonospora species. Antioxidant activity screening of the culture extracts of the bacteria revealed the high potential of DPPH radical scavenging activity of the isolated actinobacteria. Recent studies showed that the presence of oil pollutants such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH
s), heavy metals and xenobiotics increases the levels of oxidative pressure in marine sediments. Consequently, the marine sediments inhabiting organisms increase their antioxidant activity to neutralize this pressure (
Solan and Whiteley, 2016). Determination of antioxidant activity of the most potent isolates indicated that the OS 157 culture extract exhibited the highest activity with IC
50 value of 356.8 µg/mL (
Table 1). In this regard, Lee and his colleagues showed that ethyl acetate culture extract of the
Streptomyces sp. strain MJM 10778 could scavenge DPPH radicals with IC
50 value of 92.8 µg/mL (
Lee et al., 2014). In another study, the crude extract of the
Streptomyces sp. LK-3 showed DPPH scavenging activity with IC
50 value of 41.09 µg/mL (
Karthik et al., 2013). The results of cytotoxic activity screening showed that 38.88% extracted secondary metabolites from the distinct isolates exhibited LC
50 ≤1 000 µg/mL. Therefore, these results approved their bioactivity according to accepted criteria (
Meyer et al., 1982). In this context, the study of
Kesavan (2015) showed that 13.46% isolated actinobacteria from marine sediments represented LC
50 value lower than 1 000 µg/mL by brine shrimp cytotoxicity assay. The result of our study showed that the extracted secondary metabolites from OS 157 isolate exhibited maximum cytotoxic activity with LC
50 value of 335.4 µg/mL (
Table 2). In another study, the extracted metabolites from
Streptomyces sp. strain CAS isolated from marine sediments exhibited LC
50 value of 23.5 µg/mL against Artemia nauplii (
Palaniappan et al., 2013). Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that there were significant evolutionary distances between selected potent strains and their closest type strains. Therefore, these putative strains might have undergone mutations in the 16S rRNA gene during the adaptation process with the microenvironments in marine sediments (
Orr, 2005). Accordingly, their biosynthetic gene clusters also might be encountered mutation that led to the development of the new biosynthetic pathways and, consequently, the novel bioactive compounds. In conclusion, we have introduced a selective isolation process, including media and treatments that could exploit frequent and diverse taxonomic groups of marine actinobacteria. This study revealed the distribution pattern and diversity of actinobacterial populations in the north part of the Oman Sea sediments in Hormozgan Province, Iran and represented promising strains for the discovery of cytotoxic and antioxidant agents.