Studies on the production of antiviral antibiotics by actinomycetes

The cause of an epidemic disease was discovered to be a germ in the late of 19th century. In the 20th century, most bacterial infectious diseases were treated by antibiotics. However, there are a lot of problems for development of viral disease drugs. Viruses mainly depend on the functions of the host cells. The goal of antiviral chemotherapy is the discovery of antiviral agents that are specific for the inhibition of viral multiplication without affecting normal cell division. In general, compounds that have affected the multiplication of viruses have also affected the replication of uninfected cells. Streptomyces microflavus strain No. 2445, an actinomycete isolated from a soil sample in 1995, was selected to produce a valuable antiherpetic agent, which was named fattiviracin. In our recent study, this strain turned out to produce at least 13 derivatives of fattiviracin, which were named fattiviracin FV-1 to FV-13 in turn of the retention time on HPLC. The author carried out the purification, the structure elucidations and the biological activities of these 13 derivatives, and moreover the biosynthesis of the FV-8, one of the major products.