Characterization of Streptomyces sp. LS462 with high productivity of echinomycin, a potent anti-tuberculosis and synergistic antifungal antibiotic.

A biologically active microbial strain, designated as LS462, was isolated from a soil sample collected from Yaoli Virgin Forest of Jiangxi Province, China. The strain was able to produce a high yield of echinomycin (172 mg/L) even under non-optimized culture conditions and proposed to serve as a promising source of echinomycin. In this study, echinomycin exhibited strong anti-Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv activity and synergistic antifungal effect with a greatly reduced dosage of posaconazole on Candida albicans SC5314. The strain belongs to the genus Streptomyces according to its morphological and 16S rDNA phylogenetic analysis. The 16S rDNA was found to have highest sequence identity with Streptomyces fuscichromogenes (99.37% similarity). Extensive nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopic data were used to determine the structure of echinomycin. The strain S. fuscichromogenes has not been previously reported to produce echinomycin. Strain LS462 may be exploited as a new potential source for the commercial production of echinomycin. Also, this work firstly reported the new synergistic antifungal activity of echinomycin and further study of the synergistic mechanism will be helpful to guide the development of antifungal agents.