1958 Volume 11 Issue 1 Pages 6-13
A research for new antibiotic produced by soil actinomycetes, has been carried in our laboratory for the past several years. Streptomyces No. 63 was found to produce a very unstable substance showing characteristic broad antimicrobial spectrum. Recently the crystal of its sulfate was obtained and it was studied in detail and confirmed to be a new antibiotic on the basis of its physical, chemical and biological properties. This unstable antibiotic was named Latumcidin.Comparing with the known antibiotics, it has been found to resemble in some points with eulicin which was reported by Charney, et al.(1)(2) in 1955. However, latumcidin seems to be somewhat different from eulicin in Sakaguchi reaction and other respects.The physical appearance of this organism and its growth characteristics on various media were not in the standard references, but this strain was considered to belong to a species related to Streptomyces reticuli.Tentatively, this strain was designated as Streptomyces reticuli var. latumcidicus.
