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Published on: August 8, 2025
Antibiotic and antimalarial quinones from fungus-growing ant-associated Pseudonocardia sp
Gavin Carr1, Emily R Derbyshire, Eric Caldera
1Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
Abstract:
Three new members of the angucycline class of antibiotics, pseudonocardones A-C (1-3), along with the known antibiotics 6-deoxy-8-O-methylrabelomycin (4) and X-14881 E (5) have been isolated from the culture of a Pseudonocardia strain associated with the fungus-growing ant Apterostigma dentigerum. Compounds 4 and 5 showed antibiotic activity against Bacillus subtilis 3610 and liver-stage Plasmodium berghei, while 1-3 were inactive or only weakly active in a variety of biological assays. Compound 5 also showed moderate cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells.
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