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It is quite amazing that the oldest group of medically useful
antibiotics, the p-Iactams, are still providing basic
microbiologists, biochemists, and clinicians with surprises over 50
years after Fleming's discovery of penicillin production by
Penicillium. By the end of the 1950s, the future of the penicillins
seemed doubtful as resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus began
to increase in hospital populations. However, the development of
semisynthetic penicillins provided new structures with resistance
to penicillinase and with broad-spectrum activity. In the 1960s,
the discovery of cephalosporin C production by Cephalosporium and
its conversion to valuable broad-spectrum antibiotics by
semisynthetic means excited the world of chemotherapy. In the early
1970s, the 40-year-old notion that p-lactams were produced only by
fungi was destroyed by the discovery of cephamycin production by
Streptomyces. Again this basic discovery was exploited by the
development of the semisynthetic cefoxitin, which has even broader
activity than earlier p-lactams. Later in the 1970 s came the
discoveries of nocardicins from Nocardia, clavulanic acid from
Streptomyces, and the carbapenems from Streptomyces. Now in the
1980s we learn that p-lactams are produced even by unicellular
bacteria and that semisynthetic derivatives of these monobactams
may find their way into medicine. Indeed, the future of the
prolific p-lactam family seems brighter with each passing decade.
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