Exploration of novel secondary metabolites from Indonesian Actinomycetes to combat multidrug resistance on Streptococcus pneumoniae in their biosynthetic and genomic context

01.10.2016 bis 30.09.2017

Infectious diseases, e.g. caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, are one of the major concerns of many countries through the world. For the cure of pneumococcal diseases generally antibiotics are employed but recent studies revealed that at least one third of S. pneumoniae turned out to become more and more resistant against antibiotics. Vaccination is only effective when applied in the early born period and pose a high risk when applied to immunocompromised patients. Therefore, novel antibiotics with novel chemical entities and novel mode of actions are necessary. One key to overcome this situation is to find new antibiotics from Indonesian Actinomycetes. Soil Actinomycetes have been a prolifc source of antibiotics and still represent an outstanding resource for new antibiotics. Particularly, Indonesian Actinomycetes are definitely underexplored strains with an extremely high potential for production of novel antimicrobial compounds because Indonesia is one of the most species-rich and biodiverse countries in the world. This biodiversity will most likely be reflected in the chemical evolution of bioactive secondary metabolites.
Using a state-of-the art bioassay-guided fractination strategy, this project will lead to the discovery as well as to the biological and chemical characterization of several novel antibiotics