The cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum is normally susceptible to the action of the polyene antibiotic nystatin. We describe conditions under which transient nystatin resistance can be induced in the absence of detectable changes in sterol composition. These results suggest that nystatin plays a positive role in promoting resistance to itself.

A short synthesis of the revised structure of the marine natural product tridachiahydropyrone is described. A novel biomimetic photochemical electrocyclization was employed to construct the bicyclic carbon framework from an open-chain polyene precursor. The spectroscopic data matched that of the isolated natural product, supporting a revised structure of this complex metabolite.

Streptomyces sp. TP-A0871 produces the polyene macrolactam heronamide C. Here, we report its draft genome sequence to get insight into heronamide biosynthesis and genome-mining for novel secondary metabolites of polyketide and nonribosomal peptide classes. The genome encodes over nine orphan gene clusters for polyketide and/or nonribosomal peptide syntheses.

The strong field ionization rates for ethylene, trans 1,3-butadiene, and trans,trans 1,3,5-hexatriene have been calculated using time-dependent configuration interaction with single excitations and a complex absorbing potential (TDCIS-CAP). The calculations used the aug-cc-pVTZ basis set with a large set of diffuse functions (3 s, 2 p, 3 d, and 1 f) on each atom. The absorbing boundary was plac...

Caspofungin acetate (Cancidas, MK-0991, L-743,872) is a parenteral antifungal agent indicated in the treatment of invasive aspergillosis in patients who are intolerant of or whose infection is refractory to other antifungal therapies. It is the first member of a novel class of antifungals, the echinocandins, to be made available in the USA. As a class, the echinocandins possess a mechanism of a...