Revisiting unexploited antibiotics in search of new antibacterial drug candidates: the case of γ-actinorhodin.

ABSTRACT: Of the thousands of natural product antibiotics discovered to date, only a handful have been developed for the treatment of bacterial infection. The clinically unexploited majority likely include compounds with untapped potential as antibacterial drugs, and in view of the ever-growing unmet medical need for such agents, warrant systematic re-evaluation. Here we revisit the actinorhodins, a class that was first reported 70 years ago, but which remains poorly characterized. We show that γ-actinorhodin possesses many of the requisite properties of an antibacterial drug, displaying potent and selective bactericidal activity against key Gram-positive pathogens (including Staphylococcus aureus and enterococci), a mode of action distinct from that of other agents in clinical use, an extremely low

SUBMITTER: Nass NM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5727142 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature