Comparison of the lethal effects of different actinomycins on a repair-deficient strain of Escherichia coli

• Published in: Mutation research Vol. 391; no. 1; pp. 33 - 38
• Main Authors: Holmalahti, Jussi, Santa, Harri, Laatsch, Hartmut, von Wright, Atte
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 13-06-1997
• Subjects: Actinomycin; Adenosine Triphosphatases - genetics; Antibiotics, Antineoplastic - toxicity; Bacterial Proteins - genetics; Dactinomycin - analogs & derivatives; Dactinomycin - toxicity; DNA Repair; DNA-Binding Proteins - genetics; Escherichia coli; Escherichia coli - drug effects; Escherichia coli - genetics; Escherichia coli Proteins; Genotoxicity; Mutagenicity Tests; Rec A Recombinases - genetics; Streptomyces; Streptomyces; Actinomycin; Genotoxicity
• ISSN: 1383-5718; 0027-5107; 1879-3592
• DOI: 10.1016/S0165-1218(97)00023-2

We report here the isolation and purification of a genotoxic antibiotic from the culture medium of a
Streptomyces strain. The antibiotic was identified as actinomycin X
2 by using a database search (AntiBase). In the previous studies a related compound, actinomycin D, has been shown to be non-mutagenic in the salmonella/microsome assay and several other bacterial systems. The fact that an actinomycin was detected by a bacterial repair assay seems to contradict these results. Therefore we tested several actinomycins by differential killing assay based on the same
Escherichia
coli strains that were used in our screening bioassays. According to our results the
uvrA,
recA double mutant sensitizes
E.
coli to the genotoxic effects of actinomycins.