Microbes antibiotic production

EJ Vandamme. Peptide antibiotic production through immobilized biocatalyst technology. Enzyme Microb Technol 5 403-416, 1983. 

Antibiotics (qv) have been fed at subtherapeutic levels to promote mminant animal growth. Possible reasons for the observed growth include decreased activity of microbes having a pathogenic effect on the animal, decreased production of microbial toxins, decreased microbial destmction of essential nutrients, increased vitamin synthesis or synthesis of other growth factors, and increased nutrient absorption because of a thinner intestinal wall... 

Antibiotic substances and their molecular genetics are summarized for the best studied system of fluorescent Pseudomonas, producing up to. seven different compounds. Similar extensive studies should be done for other important rhizosphere bacteria as potential important antagonists for root pathogens. The best-studied example for the effects of vitamins in the rhizosphere is biotin. The molecular genetics of production and uptake of vitamins in the plant-microbe interaction is also a field of interesting future work. 

Kasche, V. (1986) Mechanism and yields in enzyme catalysed equilibrium and kinetically controlled synthesis of -lactam antibiotics, peptides and other condensation products. Enzyme Microb. Technol., 8, 4-16. 

Figure 8.1. Biofilms are microbial communities that are made up of several species and often possess a distinct spatial structure. It has been found that living in a biofilm can offer significant protection to individuals, with sterilisation agents and even antibiotics being less potent against individuals if they are found in a biofilm. This is significant because it has been estimated that nearly three quarters of bacterial infections involve microbes that live in biofilm communities. Although there is a growing literature on the effects of NPs on biofilms, there is currently little knowledge of the production and metabolism of NPs in biofilms.

Screening of microbial products has led to the discovery of a number of growth-inhibiting compounds that have proved to be clinically useful in cancer chemotherapy. Many of these antibiotics bind to DNA through intercalation between specific bases and block the synthesis of RNA, DNA, or both cause DNA strand scission and interfere with cell replication. All of the anticancer antibiotics now being used in clinical practice are products of various strains of the soil microbe Streptomyces. These include the anthracyclines, bleomycin, and mitomycin. 

Cheese - [DAIRY SUBSTITUTES] (Vol 7) - [ELECTROSEPARATIONS-ELECTRODIALYSIS] (Vol9) - [GENETICENGINEERING - MICROBES] (Vol 12) - [MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS] (Vol 16) -analysis of [BIOPOLYMERS - ANALYTICALTECHNIQUES] (Vol 4) -antibiotics m mfg of [ANTIBIOTICS - PEPTIDES] (Vol 3) -disodiumphosphatem prdn of [PHOSPHORIC ACID AND PHOSPHATES] (Vol 18) -food additives for [FOOD ADDITIVES] (Vol 11) -mineral nutrient source [MINERAL NUTRIENTS] (Vol 16) -recombinant chymosm m [GENETIC ENGINEERING - MICROBES] (Vol 12)... 

Most people are familiar with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and how they eventually became doomed as an input into modern industrial products. Ironically, these compounds were initially introduced as environmentally perfect alternatives due to their nontoxic and nonbioaccumulative nature. This is one of many examples of decisions - in this case about safe materials - that have been made on large scale, only to be followed by a late awakening and significant costs to society and individual organizations. Some of the more recent examples now looming on the horizon may be even worse due to their direct impacts on humans - antibiotic-resistant strains of microbes from antibiotics in biota, hampered kidney function from cadmium in foods, and endocrine disruption from plastic additives, to mention just a few. 

Due to the relative ease of access to plants, plant-derived materials have been in the majority as far as sources are concerned, with microbial sources being especially important in the antibiotic area. Recent work suggests that marine organisms will play an increasingly important role in the future, especially with the increasing power of organic synthesis to address the supply problems inherent with this source material. In the future, with the advent of genetic techniques that permit the isolation and expression of biosynthetic cassettes, microbes and their marine invertebrate hosts may well be the new frontier for natural products. 

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