The action of some water-soluble poly-α-amino acids on bacteria

Abstract

METABOLISM OF ISONIAZID 671no breakdown products of isoniazid, such as i8onicotinic acid, were detected.Hydroly8i8 of isonicotinoylglycine. To demonstrate the production of iaonicotinic acid and glycine by hydrolysis of the metabolite thought to be isonicotinoylglycine, it was necessary to purify the urine. Urine (200 ml.) was adjusted to pH 2-5 with HCI and extracted continuously with ether for 16 hr. The residual aqueous solution was neutralized with NaOH, concentrated in vacuo and filtered from the precipitated solids. The final volume was 10 ml. One ml. of this solution was applied to paper as a thin streak and chromatographed with n-propanol:water. The band containing the i8onicotinoylglycine was cut out and eluted with three successive 20 ml. of distilled water. The combined water extracts were concentrated in vacuo to 1 ml.which was applied to paper as a streak and subjected to ionophoresis in phosphate buffer pH 6-5. The band containing the i8onicotinoylglycine was again cut out, eluted, concentrated, chromatographed and eluted as before. Part of the finalWe are indebted to Dr A. Kuper of the Brompton Hospital, London, for the supply of urine samples, to Dr E. Kodicek for a gift of nicotinoylglycine, to Dr J.Attenborough for specimens of nicotinic acid hydrazide and i8onicotinamide, and to Dr L. F. J. Parker for carrying out the ionophoretic separations.

Infectious disease: Connecting innate immunity to biocidal polymers

“…AMMs (both polymers and oligomers) that mimic the functions of proteins may fill a critical need for both 1) new classes of antibiotics that do not elicit drug-resistant bacterial strains and 2) novel materials that possess antimicrobial activities yet are benign to human cells. So while the antibacterial properties of cationic poly-amino acids [4,5] and cationic polyelectrolytes (polymer biocides) [6][7][8][9][10] have been studied since the early 1950's and mid-1980's, respectively, selective antimicrobial polymers, in other words antimicrobial polymers that are non-toxic to mammalian cells, have not been as well explored. Interest in the development of novel selective antimicrobial polymers is growing and many potential products using these types of molecules can be imagined.…”

Glucuronide metabolism in plants. 2. The isolation of flavone glucosiduronic acids from plants

“…Polylysine has been shown to possess various biological activities. It is bacteriostatic (Katchalski, Bichowski-Slomnitzki & Volcani, 1953) and virostatic (Stahmann, Graf, Patterson, Walker & Watson, 1951); it inhibits thromboplastic activity (de Vries et al 1951), fibrinolysis (Ginsburg, de Vries & Katchalski, 1952), the proteolytic activity of pepsin (Katchalski, Berger & Neumann, 1954) and the clearing action of heparin on alimentary lipemia (Stein, de Vries, Wislicki & Katchalski, 1954).…”

Proceedings of the Biochemical Society

“…The amount of polylysines required to inhibit growth of 173-25 and D was at least 100 times less than the inhibitory concentration for 9637 (cf. Katchalski et al, 1953). Cadaverine was without effect.…”

“…For 173-25 and 26-26, lysine was replaceable by a-acetyllysine but not by w-acetyllysine. For rats, the latter replaced lysine, while a-acetyllysine was ineffective (Neuberger & Sanger, 1943). Hydroxyaminocaproic acid, a lysine antagonist in rats (Gaudrey, 1954), had no effect on any mutant.…”