Scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology have discovered in their backyard, a novel strain of bacterium that produces compounds with antibiotic properties.
They have isolated a strain of Streptomyces species from the Institute’s soil that produces two anti-biotic compounds.Actinomycin D, a drug on the list of WHO’s ‘List of Essential Medicines’, exhibits both antibiotic and anti-tumour activity. It is among the oldest drugs used for treatment of many types of cancers.
The team of researchers, led by Prakasham Reddy Shetty, described their findings in the journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. The novel strain, called RAB 12, produces the chemical compounds RSP 01 and RSP 02 that showed antimicrobial activity. Both these compounds have exhibited antibiotic activity ten times more potent than Actinomycin D.
“Antimicrobial activity profile revealed higher antimicrobial activity against bacterial strains Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, and Bacillus subtilis and Candida albicans compared to standard Actinomycin D,” the researchers wrote in their research paper.
In their study, the researchers also described the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) for one of the compounds to be ten times smaller than that of Actinomycin D. “MIC and MBC for RSP 01 were observed to be 0.0039 and 0.0078 ( mu g/ml) against C. albicans, while for actinomycin D, it was found to be 0.031 and 0.62 ( mu g/ml), respectively indicating a tenfold higher potency,” the researchers said.
The IICT has put together a large repository of bacterial isolates from soils collected from various parts of the country.
Scientists are yet to analyse the antibiotic potential of many of those isolates. In the case of RAB 12, the study authors say the two compounds, RSP 01 and 02, are promising candidates for industrial and clinical applications.
