Staphylococcus Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Staphylococcus, including details on mrsa, hospitals, infection, antibiotic resistance, superbugs.

7-O-malonyl macrolactin A, a new macrolactin antibiotic from Bacillus subtilis active against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and a small-colony variant of Burkholderia cepacia.

Romero-Tabarez M, Jansen R, Sylla M, Lünsdorf H, Häussler S, Santosa DA, Timmis KN, Molinari G

Division of Microbiology, German Research Centre for Biotechnology, Mascheroder Weg 1, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.

We report here the discovery, isolation, and chemical and preliminary biological characterization of a new antibiotic compound, 7-O-malonyl macrolactin A (MMA), produced by a Bacillus subtilis soil isolate. MMA is a bacteriostatic antibiotic that inhibits a number of multidrug-resistant gram-positive bacterial pathogens, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, and a small-colony variant of Burkholderia cepacia. MMA-treated staphylococci and enterococci were pseudomulticellular and exhibited multiple asymmetric initiation points of septum formation, indicating that MMA may inhibit a cell division function.

Published 27 April 2006 in Antimicrob Agents Chemother, 50(5): 1701-9.
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