Surface Active Compounds (Sac’s) of Acinetobacter spp.: Applications in Biomedicine, A Review

Surface active compounds such as biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers have emerged as potential biomolecules because of their unique structure and diverse properties that are potentially useful for many therapeutic applications. Biosurfactants and bioemulsifiersof microbial origin have exhibited various biomedical activities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-adhesive, antibiofilm and anticancer. Genus Acinetobacter have been reported decades back for production of surface-active compounds, however, there are incredibly few reports on application of surface-active compounds produced by genus Acinetobacter in the biomedical field. The increasing incidences of infections caused by multidrug resistant pathogens, nosocomial infections due to biofilms produced by pathogens and various types of cancer developing in the human population are posing serious health hazards to mankind. Therefore, exploring the potential of biosurfactants and bioemulsifiers to address therapeutic issues is the need of the hour. This article reviews the different types of biosurfactants and bioemulsifiersproduced by genus Acinetobacter, and the biomedical applications of these compounds.