Isolating Novel Actinomycetes from Centralia, Pennsylvania Soil

Centralia, Pennsylvania has been facing an underground coalmine fire for over 50 years, which has changed the ecosystem quite a bit. This has increased the soil temperatures, and in turn selected for typically rare soil thermophiles. Actinomycetes are common soil bacteria that produce antibiotics that can be used in the medical field. New antibiotics are needed due to increasing antibiotic resistance, and extreme environments like Centralia may be important locations for new antibiotic discovery. Potentially novel thermophilic Actinomycetes have been isolated from surface soils (20, 21, 29, 35, and 38 degrees Celsius) in Centralia by growing them on Actinomycete Isolation Agar at 50 degrees Celsius. Gram staining has confirmed many isolates have the expected Gram positive filamentous growth. These are currently being identified using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and novel isolates will be further characterized to determine if they produce new antibiotics that can be of use