Structural elucidation of tunicamycin. II. The structure of tunicamycin.

Abstract

Tunicamycin (I) is a nucleoside antibiotic complex, produced by Streptomyces lysosu perficus.1) In the preceding communication,2) the structure of its degradation product, tunicaminyl uracil (II), was reported. This paper deals with the isolation of other degrada tion products and the gross structure of tunicamycin. Tunicamycin was hydrolyzed with 3 N hydrochloric acid at reflux for 3 hr and the hydrolyzate was extracted with ethyl ether. Concentration of the ethyl ether extract gave the mixture of fatty acids (III). IR liquidmax cm-1