boromycin

Boromycin is a bacteriocidal polyether-macrolide antibiotic. It was initially isolated from the Streptomyces antibioticus, and is notable for being the first natural product found to contain the element boron. It is effective against most gram-positive bacteria, but is ineffective against gram-negative bacteria. Boromycin kills bacteria by negatively affecting the cytoplasmic membrane, resulting in the loss of potassium ions from the cell. Boromycin has not been approved as a drug for medical use.

==Discovery== Boromycin was discovered by the scholars of the Institute for Special Botany and Organic Chemical Laboratories at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, who, in 1967, published a study in as an article called "Metabolic products of microorganisms" in the Helvetica Chimica Acta journal. In this article, the authors described that a new strain of Streptomyces antibioticus produces a novel antibiotic which was the first boron-containing organic compound found in nature. The authors called this new compound boromycin and characterized it as a complex of boric acid with a tetradentate organic complexing agent that yields by hydrolysis D-valine, boric acid, and a polyhydroxy compound of macrolide type.