1989 Volume 42 Issue 4 Pages 506-511
The pacidamycins are a new complex of nucleosidyl-peptide antibiotics with highly specific activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. They are produced by Streptomyces coemleorubidus AB 1183F-64 which was isolated from a soil sample collected at Offenburg in the FRG. The mature spore masses of the producing organism are greenish gray to blue, and the spore chains are arranged in spirals. After the structures of the pacidamycins were determined, the fermentation medium was supplemented with component amino acids. This resulted in the directed biosynthesis of several members of the complex. The overall antibiotic recovered was increased from 1 -2 mg/liter to more than 100 mg/liter through a combination of strain selection, medium manipulation and amino acid feeding experiments.
