FERMENTATIVE PREPARATION OF S³⁵-SIOMYCIN, A SULFUR-CONTAINING PEPTIDE ANTIBIOTIC

Abstract

Siomycin is a sulfur-containing peptide antibiotic which resembles thiostrepton in structure²⁾ and is produced by Streptomyces sioyaensis¹⁾. The antibiotic shows high activity against various gram-positive bacteria including Mycobacterium tuberculosis and many clinical resistant strains of Staphylococcus.
YAGI et al.³⁾ recently reported that the yield of siomycin is increased three- to four-fold by the addition of elemental sulfur to the fermentation broth where the sulfur is oxidized to thiosulfate, and also that the incorporation of thiosulfate ions is one of the key steps in siomycin biosynthesis.
This work has been carried out in order to prepare S³⁵-siomycin for pharmacological use, and owes much to the above work of YAGI et al.³⁾