Production of drugs by microbial biosynthesis and biotransformation. Possibilities, limits and future developments...

Before the advent of alchemy the therapeutic aids for man and animals consisted exclusively of using natural products in many different forms. Chemical syntheses have been used for little more than 100 years as a means of obtaining drugs. The discovery of penicillin and the first industrial production of this compound in 1941/42 opened the door to a third way for the preparation of drugs by exploitation of the manifold biosynthetic capabilities of microorganisms to produce antibiotics or more recently other pharmacologically active substances. The selective use of individual enzymatic transformation stages with microorganisms in chemical production pathways in particular by biotransformations of steroids in 1950 expanded the field of biotechnological production of pharmaceuticals. The increasing knowledge in the regulation of the biosynthesis of primary and secondary metabolites, the growing experience in the use of microorganisms as biocatalysts and source of valuable enzymes and the development of new economical technical procedures raised the number and volume of drugs prepared by microbial biosynthesis and biotransformation. The modern method of the genetic engineering supported by the chemical DNA-synthesis enabled the preparation of important proteohormones and physiologically active peptides in microorganisms. Finally, the development of monoclonal antibodies, although at present still formed in mammalian cells, will lead to new ways of therapy in future. A review is given on the present state of biotechnological productions of antibiotics, vitamins, steroids, alkaloids, amino acids and pharmaceutical enzymes combined with new developments in the preparation of blood factors, enzyme inhibitors, hormones and physiologically active peptides and the possible future use of monoclonal antibodies.