RS-22A, B and C: new macrolide antibiotics from Streptomyces violaceusniger. I. Taxonomy, fermentation, isolation and biological activities

Reclassification of Streptomyces castelarensis and Streptomyces sporoclivatus as later heterotypic synonyms of Streptomyces antimycoticus

We investigated the taxonomic relationship between Streptomyces antimycoticus, Streptomyces castelarensis, Streptomyces sporoclivatus, and Streptomyces violaceusniger. Digital DNA-DNA hybridisation using whole genome sequences and multilocus sequence analysis indicated that S. antimycoticus, S. castelarensis, and S. sporoclivatus belong to the same genomospecies. Previously reported phenotypic data also supported this synonymy. Therefore, S. castelarensis and S. sporoclivatus should be reclassified as later heterotypic synonyms of S. antimycoticus. The type strain of S. antimycoticus is NBRC 12839^T (=ATCC 23880^T=CBS 660.68^T=RIA 1198^T=CGMCC 4.1591^T=DSM 40284^T=JCM 4228^T=JCM 4621^T=KCTC 9694^T=NRRL 2421^T=NRRL ISP-5284^T=VKM Ac-1824^T). This study also revealed that genome sequence-published S. violaceusniger NRRL F-8817 should be reclassified into S. antimycoticus.

Guanidine-Containing Polyhydroxyl Macrolides: Chemistry, Biology, and Structure-Activity Relationship

Antimicrobial resistance has been seriously threatening human health, and discovering new antimicrobial agents from the natural resource is still an important pathway among various strategies to prevent resistance. Guanidine-containing polyhydroxyl macrolides, containing a polyhydroxyl lactone ring and a guanidyl side chain, can be produced by many actinomycetes and have been proved to possess many bioactivities, especially broad-spectrum antibacterial and antifungal activities. To explore the potential of these compounds to be developed into new antimicrobial agents, a review on their structural diversities, spectroscopic characterizations, bioactivities, acute toxicities, antimicrobial mechanisms, and the structure-activity relationship was first performed based on the summaries and analyses of related publications from 1959 to 2019. A total of 63 guanidine-containing polyhydroxyl macrolides were reported, including 46 prototype compounds isolated from 33 marine and terrestrial actinomycetes and 17 structural derivatives. Combining with their antimicrobial mechanisms, structure-activity relationship analyses indicated that the terminal guanidine group and lactone ring of these compounds are vital for their antibacterial and antifungal activities. Further, based on their bioactivities and toxicity analyses, the discovery of guanidyl side-chain targeting to lipoteichoic acid of Staphylococcus aureus indicated that these compounds have a great potency to be developed into antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Bioactive compounds from marine actinomycetes

Actinomycetes are one of the most efficient groups of secondary metabolite producers and are very important from an industrial point of view. Among its various genera, Streptomyces, Saccharopolyspora, Amycolatopsis, Micromonospora and Actinoplanes are the major producers of commercially important biomolecules. Several species have been isolated and screened from the soil in the past decades. Consequently the chance of isolating a novel actinomycete strain from a terrestrial habitat, which would produce new biologically active metabolites, has reduced. The most relevant reason for discovering novel secondary metabolites is to circumvent the problem of resistant pathogens, which are no longer susceptible to the currently used drugs. Existence of actinomycetes has been reported in the hitherto untapped marine ecosystem. Marine actinomycetes are efficient producers of new secondary metabolites that show a range of biological activities including antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, insecticidal and enzyme inhibition. Bioactive compounds from marine actinomycetes possess distinct chemical structures that may form the basis for synthesis of new drugs that could be used to combat resistant pathogens.

Application of centrifugal counter-current chromatography to the separation of macrolide antibiotic analogues. I. Selection of solvent systems based on solubility and partition coefficient investigations

As the first part of our studies on counter-current chromatography, the methodology for selecting suitable solvent systems was established based on detailed investigations of solubility and partition coefficients (log K) of macrolide antibiotic analogues. The solubility of two important macrolides, ascomycin and FK-506, was measured in a series of common solvents, where their polarities were ranked with dielectric constants. The partition coefficients of the two macrolides were compared in various binary, ternary, quaternary solvent systems. Hexane-tert.-butyl methyl ether-methanol-water system was selected based on suitable log K of solutes and hydrogen-bonding properties of solvents. In the further optimisation of composition proportions in the multicomponent solvent system, hexane-tert.-butyl methyl ether-methanol-water (1:3:6:5) showed the best solvent selectivity by giving the most prominent difference of partition coefficient (delta log K) between ascomycin and FK-506. With this solvent system, a baseline preparative separation of these two very closely related 23-membered macrolide antibiotics was successfully achieved by employing the newly introduced Quattro counter-current chromatograph.