The detection of members of the olivanic acid family in Streptomyces gedanensis.

During investigations into the production of 13-lactamase inhibitory activity by microorganisms we studied the culture Streptomyces gedanensis ATCC 4880. This culture has been reported by HATA et al.' to produce (3-lactamase inhibitory activity, the active component designated KA107 was shown to be a high molecular weight substance, probably a protein. Our studies have shown that S. gedanensis produces, in addition to KA 107, a series of low molecular weight inhibitors which are all members of the previously described2'3) family of antibiotics, with (3-lactamase inhibitory activity, the olivanic acids (Fig. 1). In our preliminary studies S. gedanensis was grown in a range of fermentation media. The 3-lactamase inhibitory activity of the resulting culture filtrate samples was determined by an automated method3) using a cell free RTEM enzyme preparation with penicillin G as substrate. Samples were also assayed using the previously described4) agar plate method for