Fungal Biotransformation of Tetracycline Antibiotics

The commercial antibiotics tetracycline (3), minocycline (4), chlortetracycline (5), oxytetracycline (6), and doxycycline (7) were biotransformed by a marine-derived fungus Paecilomyces sp. to yield seco-cyclines A–H (9–14, 18 and 19) and hemi-cyclines A–E (20–24). Structures were assigned by detailed spectroscopic analysis, and in the case of 10 X-ray crystallography. Parallel mechanisms account for substrate-product specificity, where 3–5 yield seco-cyclines and 6 and 7 yield hemi-cyclines. The susceptibility of 3–7 to fungal biotransformation is indicative of an unexpected potential for tetracycline “degradation” (i.e., antibiotic resistance) in fungal genomes. Significantly, the fungal-derived tetracycline-like viridicatumtoxins are resistant to fungal biotransformation, providing chemical insights that could inform the development of new tetracycline antibiotics resistant to enzymatic degradation.