KOMPAS. com – Bacteria do not always have a negative impact, they are also used in the production of various biotech products. One of the biotech products produced by bacteria is antibiotics tetracycline.
Bacteria that produce tetracycline products is Streptomyces aureofaciens. Streptomyces aureofaciens are aerobic gram-positive bacteria found in soil.
Discovery of tetracyclines
Tetracycline it was first discovered in 1948 by an American plant physiologist named Benjamin Minge Duggar.
At that time, the antibiotic penicillin had been discovered and it helped many sick and injured people, especially during WWII.
Read also: Antibiotic-producing microorganisms
Penicillin is an antibiotic that comes from a fungus. Reported by World of chemistryDuggar knows there are thousands of types of mushrooms in the soil, so he collects soil samples from various places.
It aims to find other antibacterial agents such as penicillin. While searching soil samples in Missouri, Duggar found an antibiotic produced not by fungi, but by bacteria.
Antibiotics This is a tetracycline produced by the gram-positive bacterium Streptomyces aureofaciens.
Read also: Classification of bacteria
Uses of Tetracycline
Reported by Encyclopaedia Britannicatetracyclines work by interfering with the ability of bacteria to make or synthesize certain vital proteins.
Therefore, it can inhibit the growth and fight against proliferating microorganisms.
Reported by National Center for Biotechnology Informationtetracyclines can inhibit protein synthesis because tetracyclines bind to the 30S ribosomal subunit and interfere with the binding of aminoacyl-tRNA to the mRNA-riboson complex.
As a result, proteins cannot be produced and disease-causing microorganisms are difficult to grow. Therefore, tetracyclines have antibacterial, antimicrobial and antiprotozoal properties.
This ability makes tetracyclines used to treat various types of diseases such as rosacea, brucellosis, acne, cholera, psittacosis, tularemia, trachoma, chlamydia and epidemics such as plague, Lyme disease and anthrax.
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