Mutacin 1140 and Occidiofungin: Natural Products Isolated from Bacterial Sources and Their Potential Applications as Therapeutics

Abstract

Natural products have long been a template by which science has produced medicines which have saved millions of lives. Bacterial sources have yielded many peptide based drugs which continue to show great value against targets such as Gram-positive and Gram-negative infections. In this work, we will present two natural products yielded from Burkholderia contaminans and Streptococcus mutans bacteria which have shown great promise against multiple cancer cell lines and Gram-positive infections, respectively. B. contaminans produces occidiofungin, a non-ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptide with antifungal properties. Testing against several cancer lines, including ovarian cancer and B-cell lymphoma showed that occidiofungin had efficacy against the cancer lines at a concentration 75 times lower than cytotoxic dosing attempts in mice. S. mutans produces mutacin 1140, a lantibiotic product which is ribosomally synthesized and undergoes posttranslational modifications. We have found that in vitro dosing of mutacin 1140 in combination with an aminoglycoside, kanamycin against Staphylococcus aureus results in a synergistic inhibition effect. Both of these compounds possess great potential as therapeutics.