Abstract
The effect of the nucleoside-peptide antibiotics nikkomycin Z, nikkomycin X, and polyoxin A was tested on chitosomal chitin synthetase from yeast cells of the dimorphic fungus Mucor rouxii. The K i was 0.6 μM for polyoxin A and 0.5 μM for nikkomycin X; nikkomycin Z was slightly less inhibitory (K i=3.5μM). Whereas the minimum inhibitory concentrations of the nikkomycins for growth and germination were quite low (about 1μM, or lower), polyoxin A displayed no antifungal activity against yeast cells and sporangiospores of the test organism, even when present in high concentrations. These results are discussed with respect to structure/activity relationships.
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Abbreviations
- MIC:
-
minimum inhibitory concentration (i.e. concentration required to completely suppress growth: cf. Drews, 1979)
- GlcNAc:
-
N-acetyl-d-glucosamine
- UDP-GlcNAc:
-
uridine 5′-diphospho-N-acetyl-d-glucosamine
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Metabolic products of microorganisms. 202. H. P. Kaiser and W. Keller-Schierlein: Strukturaufklärung von Elaiophylin: Spektroskopische Untersuchungen und Abbau. Helv. Chim. Acta 64: 407–424 (1981)
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Müller, H., Furter, R., Zähner, H. et al. Metabolic products of microorganisms. Arch. Microbiol. 130, 195–197 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00459518
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00459518