1960 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages 137-142
The antibiotic mikamycin was isolated from a broth culture of Streptomyces mitakaensis by Arai et al.1,2) of the Institute of Applied Microbiology, University of Tokyo, in 1956. Thereafter, another antibiotic was found in the same broth culture and the previous one was named mikamycin A and the other mikamycin B3,4). As described by Tanaka et al.5,6), these antibiotics inhibit mainly the growth of grampositive bacteria both in vitro and in vivo and show no cross-resistance with those antibiotics which have been in medical and veterinary use up to date. Mikamycins A and B show a high synergistic action which becomes most significant when 30 to 90% mikamycin A is contained in the mixture of mikamycin A and mikamycin B. Tanaka et al.6) reported that S. aureus, when treated with B, raised its sensitivity to A.
With mikamycins supplied by the Institute of Applied Microbiology, the authors studied absorption and excretion of the antibiotics in dogs and their toxicity to dogs in case of long-term oral administration. This paper deals with these studies.
