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Biological Activity And Conformational Analysis Of Nikkomycins And Their Analogs, Eduardo Krainer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Nikkomycins and polyoxins are peptidyl nucleoside antibiotics produced by Streptomyces species. They are potent inhibitors of chitin synthetases from pathogenic fungi, and polyoxins have been used in Japan for many years as agricultural fungicides and for insect control. Since chitin synthetase is not found in mammals and both families of antibiotics are not toxic, these inhibitors are potentially attractive for clinical use. Unfortunately these compounds seem to have only a fungistatic action, and they are not used clinically at present.

A procedure for efficiently obtaining nikkomycins X and Z of very high purity from crude antibiotic is described. These nikkomycins …