The organisms thriving under extreme conditions better than any other organism living on Earth, fascinate by their hostile growing parameters, physiological features, and their production of valuable bioactive metabolites. This is the case of microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, and fungi) that grow optimally at high salinities and are able to produce biomolecules of pharmaceutical interest for therapeutic applications. As along as the microbiota is being approached by massive sequencing, novel insights are revealing the environmental conditions on which the compounds are produced in the microbial community without more stress than sharing the same substratum with their peers, the salt. In this review are reported the molecules described and produced by halophilic microorganisms with a spectrum of action in vitro: antimicrobial and anticancer. The action mechanisms of these molecules, the urgent need to introduce alternative lead compounds and the current aspects on the exploitation and its limitations are discussed.
Keywords: anticancer compounds; antimicrobial compounds; archaea and fungi; biomedicine; biomolecules; halophilic bacteria.