Abstract

There is a considerable need for the discovery of novel antibiotics because there have not been any new classes of antibiotics introduced to the market since the late 1980’s. This lull in antibiotic development is problematic because antimicrobial resistance is considered to be the largest global health crisis. If trends in antimicrobial resistant infections continue upward, drug resistance is projected to be responsible for approximately 10 million deaths per year globally by 2050. The isolation and modification of natural products is one of many antibiotic discovery methods with proven success. Natural products are compounds that are released by bacteria as a method of limiting the proliferation of other bacterial species. This study presents the extraction and isolation methods of a natural product elicited in monoculture from Herbaspirillum sp., a bacterial genus which has not previously been known to produce compounds with antibiotic activity. The natural product discussed here exhibits antibiotic activity against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. Past work on this project tested the compound’s antibiotic activity through a cell death assay and began characterization through mass spectrometry. This work presents refined scale-up methodology, including optimal media composition for bacterial culture and effective compound isolation and purification through size exclusion extraction and reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography. Future research includes identifying the compound’s structure before assessing its candidacy for clinical applications as an antibiotic or adjuvant.

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