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Marine environments are a fruitful source of bioactive compounds some of which are the newest leading drugs in medicinal therapeutics. Of particular importance are organisms like sponges and macroalgae and their associated microbiome.  Planctomycetes , abundant in macroalgae biofilms, are promising producers of bioactive compounds since they share characteristics, like large genomes and complex life cycles, with the most bioactive bacteria, the  Actinobacteria . Furthermore, genome mining revealed the presence of secondary metabolite pathway genes or clusters in 13 analyzed  Planctomycetes  genomes. In order to assess the antimicrobial production of a large and diverse collection of  Planctomycetes  isolated from macroalgae from the Portuguese coast, molecular, and bioactivity assays were performed in 40 bacteria from several taxa. Two genes commonly associated with the production of bioactive compounds, nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPS), and polyketide synthases (PKS) genes were screened. Molecular analysis revealed that 95% of the planctomycetes potentially have one or both secondary bioactive genes; 85% amplified with PKS-I primers and 55% with NRPS primers. Some of the amplified genes were confirmed to be involved in secondary metabolite pathways. Using bioinformatic tools their biosynthetic pathways were predicted. The secondary metabolite genomic potential of strains LF1, UC8, and FC18 was assessed using  in silico  analysis of their genomes. Aqueous and organic extracts of the  Planctomycetes  were evaluated for their antimicrobial activity against an environmental  Escherichia coli, E. coli  ATCC 25922,  Pseudomonas aeruginosa  ATCC 27853,  Staphylococcus aureus  ATCC 25923,  Bacillus subtilis  ATCC 6633, and a clinical isolate of  Candida albicans . The screening assays showed a high number of planctomycetes with bioactive extracts revealing antifungal (43%) and antibacterial (54%) activity against  C. albicans  and  B. subtilis , respectively. Bioactivity was observed in strains from  Rhodopirellula lusitana, R. rubra, R. baltica, Roseimaritima ulvae , and  Planctomyces brasiliensis . This study confirms the bioactive capacity of  Planctomycetes  to produce antimicrobial compounds and encourages further studies envisaging molecule isolation and characterization for the possible discovery of new drugs.

Planctomycetes as Novel Source of Bioactive Molecules