Paper Chromatography of Antifungal Antibiotics

Abstract

Paper chromatography is very helpful in the identi- fication and comparison of antibiotics, but very few results from the application of this technique have been published so far.The awakening of interest in the search for antibiotics which are active against fungi pathogenic to plants and animals makes the investiga- tor aware of the scant information that is available to help characterize such agents.A knowledge of the Rf values of the known antifungal agents would help ad- vance the search for such therapeutic materials.Often these values, in conjunction with the biological inhibi- tory activities, are the only criteria by which one can determine whether the unknown agent appears to be a new material.When the Rf data are obtained for shake cultures, one can eliminate many previously described antibiotic-producing organisms from further study, thus