The potent antimicrobial extract of a culture of the marine derived actinomycete Streptomyces cyaneofuscatus M-169 was fractionated by reversed phase flash chromatography and preparative HPLC to yield the new Gram-positive antibiotic, anthracimycin B (1), together with its congener, anthracimycin (2). The structure of the new compound was established by analysis of its ESI-TOF MS and 1D and 2D NMR spectra, and comparison with data published for anthracimycin and anthracimycin BII-2619 (3). Notably, anthracimycin seemed to be the major and almost unique component of the extract detected by HPLC-UV-MS, making our S. cyanofuscatus strain an excellent candidate for further biosynthetic studies of this potent antibiotic.
Keywords: Cantabrian Sea; Streptomyces cyaneofuscatus; anthracimycin; deep-sea actinobacteria.