title: Rifamycins: strain improvement program.
abstract: Rifamycins are primarily produced by Gram-positive bacterium Amycolatopsis mediterranei, which belongs to the order Actinomycetales. These antibiotics, apart from their application against pathogens of tuberculosis and leprosy, have also been found to be effective against several other pathogens including Mycobacterium avium and Pneumococcus. Because of the importance of rifamycin, the producer strain A. mediterranei has been genetically manipulated since 1957 in order to develop a strain that can either produce larger amounts of rifamycin or derivatives of rifamycin. In this article, the importance of the producer strain, traditional methods (mutations and recombination) of strain improvement, their limitations, and the development of a cloning vector and transformation methods that have made recombinant DNA techniques accessible for genetic manipulations of A mediterranei are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Delhi.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lal
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khanna
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Tripathi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lal
mesh_terms: D039903:Actinobacteria / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular / Q000379:methods; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D009154:Mutation; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012294:Rifamycins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D012294:Rifamycins