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Adaptation of Staphylococcus Aureus to Growth in the Presence of Certain Antibiotics

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Abstract

IT has been noticed that certain antibiotics, when tested against Staphylococcus aureus (H strain, N.C.T.C. Nor 6571) by the cylinder-plate method1, give zones f inhibition which have clear edges, but which contain, scattered through them, small numbers of isola d colonies of Staphylococd (Fig. 1). Among the fijret antibiotics found to show this phenomenon was >ne obtained from an organism of the subtilis group (N.C.T.C. No. 7197) isolated from the soil at Oxford (referred to here as S) and one which Chain and Callow2 discovered in extracts of Polystictus versicolor and have named polystictin (referred to here as P). Both are water-soluble substances which are not extracted at any pH. by common organic solvents and which have only been partially purified. They do not appear to be identical with any of the antibiotics described in the literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford

    E. P. ABRAHAM, D. CALLOW & K. GILLIVER

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  1. E. P. ABRAHAM
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  2. D. CALLOW
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  3. K. GILLIVER
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ABRAHAM, E., CALLOW, D. & GILLIVER, K. Adaptation of Staphylococcus Aureus to Growth in the Presence of Certain Antibiotics. Nature 158, 818–821 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158818a0

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