Nicole A. Caimi Diana E. Northup Ernest W. Valdez Debbie C. Buecher Christopher A. Dunlap David P. Labeda Shiloh Lueschow Andrea Porras-Alfaro Paris S. Hamm 2017 <p><span>At least two-thirds of commercial antibiotics today are derived from </span><span id="named-content-4" class="named-content genus-species">Actinobacteria</span><span>, more specifically from the genus </span><span id="named-content-5" class="named-content genus-species">Streptomyces</span><span>. Antibiotic resistance and new emerging diseases pose great challenges in the field of microbiology. Cave systems, in which actinobacteria are ubiquitous and abundant, represent new opportunities for the discovery of novel bacterial species and the study of their interactions with emergent pathogens. White-nose syndrome is an invasive bat disease caused by the fungus </span><span id="named-content-6" class="named-content genus-species">Pseudogymnoascus destructans</span><span>, which has killed more than six million bats in the last 7 years. In this study, we isolated naturally occurring actinobacteria from white-nose syndrome (WNS)-free bats from five cave systems and surface locations in the vicinity in New Mexico and Arizona, USA. We sequenced the 16S rRNA region and tested 632 isolates from 12 different bat species using a bilayer plate method to evaluate antifungal activity. Thirty-six actinobacteria inhibited or stopped the growth of </span><span id="named-content-7" class="named-content genus-species">P. destructans</span><span>, with 32 (88.9%) actinobacteria belonging to the genus </span><span id="named-content-8" class="named-content genus-species">Streptomyces</span><span>. Isolates in the genera </span><span id="named-content-9" class="named-content genus-species">Rhodococcus</span><span>, </span><span id="named-content-10" class="named-content genus-species">Streptosporangium</span><span>, </span><span id="named-content-11" class="named-content genus-species">Luteipulveratus</span><span>, and </span><span id="named-content-12" class="named-content genus-species">Nocardiopsis</span><span> also showed inhibition. Twenty-five of the isolates with antifungal activity against </span><span id="named-content-13" class="named-content genus-species">P. destructans</span><span> represent 15 novel </span><span id="named-content-14" class="named-content genus-species">Streptomyces</span><span> spp. based on multilocus sequence analysis. Our results suggest that bats in western North America caves possess novel bacterial microbiota with the potential to inhibit </span><span id="named-content-15" class="named-content genus-species">P. destructans</span><span>.</span></p> application/pdf 10.1128/AEM.03057-16 en American Society for Microbiology Western bats as a reservoir of novel Streptomyces species with antifungal activity article