[Effect of polyene macrolide antibiotics on normal and cell wall deficient Escherichia coli W1655F+ cells]

The polyene macrolide antibiotics are active against yeast, fungi, and other eukaryotic cells, but are with a few exceptions inactive against bacteria. The resistance of bacteria against these compounds is usually explained by the absence of sterols in their cells, the target sites of polyene antibiotics. However, in our experiments with mycotrienin, nystatin, tetramycin, lucenosmycin, rimocidin, filipin, lagosin, flavofungin, flavomycoin, antibiotic 2814P, antibiotic 5001P, and candicidin it was demonstrated that bacteria may be susceptible to polyene antibiotics, too, if the wall-less stable protoplast type L-form of E. coli W1655F+ is used. The measured growth inhibition concentrations were comparable with those of typical antibacterial antibiotics. Our experiments have shown that the normal rod form and the wall-less L-form of E. coli W1655F+ contain traces of sterols in nearly the same concentration range. This means that the selective sensitivity of the L-form cannot be explained by higher sterol content of these cells in comparison to the resistant normal rod form cells. We assume that the bacterial cell wall is responsible for the resistance of the normal rod form by masking internal target sites.