Antibacterial agents, soils

Golet EM, Xifra I, Siegrist H et al (2003) Environmental exposure assessment of fluoroquinolone antibacterial agents from sewage to soil. Environ Sci Technol 37 3243-3249... 

Enteroviruses [268] and antibacterial agents [269] have been determined in soil. 

The development of useful monohactum antibiotics begun with the independent isolation of sulfazecin (SQ 26,445) and other monocyclic /3-luctam antibiotics from. saprophytic soil bacteria in Jupun "" and the United States."" Sulfazecin was found to he weakly active as an antibacterial agent but highly resistant to -lactamiLses. 

Owing to the fact that the primary source of antibacterial agents for biomedical applications are secondary metabolites and chemical derivates of actinomycetes, fungi, and certain soil bacteria such as myxobacteria, most of the recent advances in molecular engineering have been made in relation to polyketide and peptide antibiotics (e.g., erythromycin and vancomycin)24 Recent literature on this topic suggests a greater mechanistic diversity in biosynthetic potential of bacterial natural products that was believed previously. 

Whereas zone of inhibition tests are only able to determine whether or not a produet eontains an antibacterial agent, the film adherenee method can give a measure of the ability of the surface to kill applied mieroorganisms. However, it does not take into consideration the soiling whieh most commonly accompanies baeterial eontamination. 

One year later, the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer discovered a related structure - christened oxytetracycline (Terramycin) - from Streptomyces rimosus. Interestingly, this was found in a soil sample located near their factory in Terre Haute, Indiana. The parent structure - tetracycline - was then obtained by chemical removal of the chlorine atom (an element only rarely found in terrestrial organisms but common in natural products from marine organisms) from chlortetracycline. This third antibacterial agent was subequently found naturally as a constituent of both Streptomyces aureofaciens and Streptomyces viridifaciens. The structures of chlortetracycline were established by R.B. Woodward in 1952 and that of oxytetracycline by Pfizer scientists (in collaboration with RBW) in 1952. 

S. Morales-Munoz, J.L. Luque-Garcia, M.D. Luque de Castro, Continuous microwave-assisted extraction coupled with derivatization and fluorimetric monitoring for the determination of fluoroquinolone antibacterial agents from soil samples, J. Chroma-togr. A 1059 (2004) 25. 

OTHER COMMENTS recommended for use in the preservation of starches, dextrins, and glues used as a wood preservative used in pressure treatment of lumber incorporated in paints, pulp stock, in pulp, paper, and hardboard used as a chemical intermediate for sodium pentachlorophenate used as a soil fumigant for termites, a preharvest defoliant on selected crops, and antibacterial agent in disinfectants and cleanser, an herbicide, algacide, germicide, and fungicide no longer available for over-the-counter sale in the Untied States. 

J. Jensen, P. Henning Krogh and L. E. Sverdrup, Effects of the antibacterial agents tiamulin, olaquindox and metronidazole and the anthelmintic ivermectin on the soil invertebrate species Folsomia fimetaria (Collembola) and Enchytraeus crypticus (Enchytraeidae), Chemosphere, 2003, 50, 437 43. 

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