Novel antitumor antibiotics, saptomycins. I. Taxonomy of the producing organism, fermentation, HPLC analysis and biological activities.

Abstract

Streptomyces sp. HP530 was found to produce novel antitumor antibiotics, saptomycins, closely related to the pluramycin-group and was further found to mutate frequently. The natural mutant produced several new saptomycins as determined by HPLC analyses. We isolated saptomycins A, B, C1, C2 and F from the parent strain and saptomycins D, E, G and H from the mutant. The saptomycins showed antimicrobial activities and potent antitumor activities against human or murine tumor cell lines in vitro and against Meth A fibrosarcoma in vivo. In particular, saptomycin D was most effective component in vivo of all saptomycins.