A Vancomycin-Related Antibiotic From Streptomyces Sp. K-288 Studies on Streptomyces Antibiotics, XXXVIII

Abstract

In our laboratory, primary screening procedure to find out antibacterial streptomyces has been carried out on the solid agar from 1956 to 1958. Firstly, isolated organisms were streaked out on glycerol-meat extract-peptone agar plate and after 4-day incubation at 27°C, agar piece of definite size just beneath the grown colony was cut out and transferred on the center of freshly prepared nutrient agar plate. Secondly, several indicator organisms were streaked around this agar piece, and the activities of this agar piece against these organisms were examined. Thus potent strains were selected primarily and then the culture filtrates of these organisms were obtained in 4 different media under shaking condition, for secondary screening purpose.

The strain K-288 was quite particular during these examinations because it showed fairly high activity against gram positive organisms in the primary screening procedure described above but the activity was hardly detectable in the secondary screening, in spite of repeated examinations in different media. Thus the explanation of this inconformity was thought to be a matter of interest and several experiments have been conducted. Finally, the mass production of the active principle found at the time of primary screening was achieved only by a surface culture of the organism.

The procedure described above may suggest a new approach to find out a new antibiotic which will be hardly found under usual submerged cultures. However, the present report chiefly concerns with biological and chemical properties of the final product obtained from this filtrate together with the taxonomic characteristics of the strain K-288. As a result, the antibiotic K-288 was found to be closely related to vancomycin^1,2). The strain K-288, however, was quite different from the known vancomycin producing strain, Streptomyces orientalis³⁾.