Honors Program
University Honors
Date of Award
5-2018
Thesis Professor(s)
Abbas G. Shilabin, Bert Lampson
Thesis Professor Department
Chemistry
Thesis Reader(s)
Bert Lampson, Gregory Bishop
Abstract
Due to increases in antibiotic resistance stemming from the overuse of commercial antibiotics, the need to discover novel antibacterial compounds is becoming more urgent. A species of Rhodococcus, MTM3W5.2, has been discovered and was found to produce a metabolite with inhibitory activity against closely related species. The aim of this study is to elucidate the structure of the inhibitory metabolite by isolating and purifying it; then characterizing it using spectroscopic techniques. The compound was isolated from MTM3W5.2 RM broth cultures using n-butanol extraction, which yielded an active crude extract. The crude extract was then subjected to fractionation using a Sephedex LH-20 column with a 100% methanol solvent. The inhibitory activity of the fractions was tested through disk diffusion assay using Rhodococcus erythropolis as an indicator. Further preparation was completed using preparative reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Advanced purification was conducted by multiple rounds of analytical reverse-phase HPLC. Throughout the study the HPLC fractions were characterized and stability was monitored using UV-Visible spectroscopy. Two pure samples at 58.xx and 72.xx minutes from HPLC collections were selected for further structural identification and are currently being studied using spectroscopic techniques, most notably 2D NMR
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Withheld
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
South, Patrick, "Discovery of a Novel Inhibitory Compound Produced by the Soil Bacterium Rhodococcus sp. MTM3W5.2" (2018). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 458. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/458
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.