Antibiotics

Chapter 23
 Content Of The Chapter
• Antibiotics
• Classification Of Antibiotics
• Chloramphenicol
• Penicillin
• Streptomycin
• Therapeutic Uses Of Streptomycin
• Tetracycline And Therapeutic Uses
• Macrolides
• Erythromycin
• Rifamycin
 Antibiotics
• After discovery of pencillin in 1940, as a valuable
medicinal preparation the word antibiotic came
into wide use in science and every life.
• The term antibiotics is defined as a drug derived
from living matter or micro-organism which
either prevents the growth of other micro-
organism or destroy them.
• Antibiotics are obtained from micro-organism
such as fungi, actinomycetes, bacteria etc.,
 Antibiotics Certain Conditions
• All the chemical substances obtained from living cells cannot be
considered as Antibiotics, Antibiotics have to satisfy certain
conditions such as:.
i. It should be effective at low concentration.
ii. It should antagonise growth or kill one or more species of the
micro-organism.
iii. It should not have significant toxic side effects.
iv. It must be effective against a pathogen
v. It should be stored for a long time without appreciable loss of its
activity.
vi. The antibiotic should be completely eliminated from the body
after
vii. It should be highly stable so that it can be isolated and processed
into suitable forms of dosages which are readily absorbed.
 Classification of antibiotics
• Approximately 6000 antibiotic substances
have been described by now and it would be
very difficult to handle such great variety of
antibiotics unless they are systematized
properly.
• There are several approaches to classification,
based on the spectrum of biological action of
antibiotics or it may be on the chemical
structure of antibiotics.
 Classification based on the spectrum
of biological action of antibiotics
• Classification mainly effective against gram positive
bacteria.
1. Antibiotics mainly effective against gram-positive
bacteria.
(a) antibiotics used for systemic infection e.g. penicillins,
fucidin etc.
(b) Those employed topically e.g baciracian
2. Antibiotics mainly effective against gram negative
bacteria e.g. streptomycin
3. Antibiotics effective against both gram positive and
gram – ve bacteria e.g. ampicillin, neomycin etc.
 Classification based on the spectrum
of biological action of antibiotics
4. Antibiotics effective against gram positive,
ricketisae, chlamydia and also gram- ve bacetria
e.g tetracyclines
5. Antibiotics effective against acid fast bacilli (M .
tuberculosis)
6. Antibiotics effective protozoa e.g tetracyclines,
paromycin.
7. Antibiotics effective against fungi e.g. nystatin,
amphotericin B etc.
8. Antimalignancy antibiotics e.g. actinomycin D,
Mitomycin etc.
 ii. Classification according to their
chemical structures
ii. Classification according to their chemical structures
• Antibiotics can be distinguished as antibiotics having acyclic structure.
1. Acylic structure
2. Tetracyclines
3. Aromatic antibiotics
4. Heterocyclic oxy-antibiotics
5. Antibiotics
6. Macrolides
7. Oligomycins
8. Aminoglycosides
9. Nitrogen containing heterocyclic compounds
10. Depsipeptides
11. Actinomycins
12. Polypeptides
 1.Chloramphenicol
• It was discovered by ehrlich et al. the chemical structure of
Chloramphenicol was elucudated by bartz et al.
• Chloramphenicol is produced commercially by both biological
and synthetic methods.
• The biological process is an aerobic fermentation using wheat
gluten as the principle ingredient of the medium.
• The synthesis of Chloramphenicol constituted the first
practically useful synthesis of a clinically important antibiotics.
• Assay of Chloramphenicol
1. Chemical method : Ultraviolet Spectrophotometric method
2. The micro biological method.
 Chloramphenicol
• Chloramphenicol is a stable neutral
compounds bitter in taste with sharp melting
point of 150.1⁰.
• The molecular composition of
Chloramphenicol C₁₁H₁₂O₅N₂Cl₂.
• Chloramphenicol soluble in many organic
solvents but is sparingly soluble in water.
Therapeutics uses of Chloramphenicol
• Chloramphenicol was the first effective broad spectrum antibiotic
to be discovered.
• It is effective against both gram + ve, - ve and also against rickettsia.
• It inhibits the growth of staphylococcus, streptococcus, bacillus,
vibrios etc.
• It is used in the treatment of typhoid fever, pneumonia, whooping
cough, enteric fever etc.
• It also uses in the treatment of haemophilus, influenza, miningitis,
plague, syphilis, gnorrhoea etc.
• This antibiotics is effectively absorbed from the intestinal tract and
is diffused into the tissues.
• Being poorly water soluble its absorption depends to a great extent
on its particle size.
 2. Penicillin
• Penicillin was discovered by Alxender fleming in
1920. it is very important and widely used
antibiotic and was first extracted from the mould
of penicillin notatum.
• Penicillin is generally produced from a culture
medium of corn steep, liquor, lactose and several
inorganic salts.
• Penicillin does not interfere with the tissue cell
wall synthesis in humans and higher animals and
non toxic in large doses.
Penicillin
 Therapeutics uses of Penicillin
It is very effective against
i. Pneumococcal infections like pneumonia, meningitis etc.
ii. Streptococcal infection like scarlet fever, pharyngitis etc
iii. Staphylococcal infection
iv. Meningococcal
v. Veneral diseases such as gonorrhoea
vi. actinomycosis
vii. Rheumatic infections
• The antibiotics can be used topically, orally or parenterally.
• Penicillin is a reasonably safe drug but some times it can produce
some adverse reactions such as nausea, vomiting, anaphylaxis,
allergic reaction etc.
 Penicillin
• Assay of Penicillin
• Chemical Method: Among all the chemical
methods, iodometric method is the most
common one.
• Microbiological method
 3.Streptomycin
• Streptomycin belongs to the important amino
glycosidic group of antibiotics and are very effective
against gram –negative organism.
• This antibiotics has played an important role in the
treatment of TB.
• Streptomycin is produced by the submerged cultures.
• This culture medium contains protein materials such as
soya bean meal, corn steep liquor, cotton seed meal or
meta extract.
• The pure form of the streptomycin is isolated as
sulphate or crystalline double salt of Ca chloride.
Therapeutics uses of Streptomycin
• The most important use of streptomycin is in the
treatment of tuberculosis.
• It is also useful in treating infection of E.coli, H.
influenzae, plague, respiratory tract infections,
meningitis, bacteremia, peritonitis etc.
• Streptomycin drugs may show some adverse reactions
like local irritation, skin rashes, renal irritation etc.
• Besides streptomycin many other antibiotics are
isolated from the genus streptomyces e.g. neomycin.
• Neomycin and gentamincin are used in the form of
ointment for the treatment of various skin diseases.
 Assay of Streptomycin
1. Chemical method. This method is given by
Donal C Grovel and william Randal.
• Principle : streptomycin reacts with oxidized
alkaline nitropruside to produce an orange
coloured derivatives whose extinction is
measured in the visible region.
• Structure and properties:
• In strong
 4.Tetracycline
• These antibiotics have the broadest antibacterial spectrum
of all.
• These are obtained from a new species of actinomuces
named streptomyces aureofaciens.
• The structure of terramycin was the first of this group to be
elucidated.
• The molecular formula was shown to be C₂₂H₂₄N₂O₉.
• All the tetracyclines are produced by actinomucetes viz.
• Assay of tetracycline:
• Microbiological method.
• Tetracyclines are bioassayd by the same plate diffusion
method as described earlier.
 Therapeutics uses of Tetracyclines

• Tetracyclines are broad spectrum antibiotics which is effective

against gram positive and negative micro organisms, acid fast
bacilli, spirochetes, rickettisae etc.
• these drugs are bacteriostatic in action and inhibit certain
essential enzyme systems of the bacterial cell.
• Protein synthesis by ribosome's is immediately inhibited after
treatment of susceptible organism with tetracyclines.
• These drugs are mainly absorbed from the duodenum and
small intestine.
Therapeutics uses of Tetracyclines
• It chelates with certain cations like Ca, Mg
etc.
• Tetracyclines are used for the treatment of a
variety of infections such as pneumonia,
actinomycosis, spotted fever, typhus fever,
gonorrhoea, syphilis, plague, rickettsia etc.
• It is less toxic drug and is well tolerated by the
patients and is readily absorbed from the
gastro intestinal tract.
Rickettsia species are transmitted by numerous types of arthropod,
including chigger, ticks, fleas, and lice, and are associated with both
human and plant disease.
Tetracyclines structure
 5.Macrolides
• Woodwards gave the name of macrolides to those compounds
obtained as antibacterial products of metabolism of various
streptomycetes with weakly alkaline properties and a high
molecular weight.
• Macrolides antibiotics contain a large lactoner ring (12-16 atoms)
having a few double bond and no nitrogen atoms in addition.
• The presence of sugar moiety is essential for the biological activity
of the macrolides.
• Macrolides are normally active gram positive bacteria but some are
active against gram negative bacteria and fungi.
• these are mainly bacteriostatic in action.
• macrolides inhibit the bacterial protein synthesis both in vivo and
vitro.
• Erythromycin is the most important member of the macrolides
antibiotics.
 6.Erythromycin
• Erythromycin molecular formula is C₃₇H₆₇NO₁₃.
• It is obtained from fermentation medium containing soyabean and
glucose.
• Erythromycin is extracted by filtering the fermentation broth containing
the antibiotic at ph 9.4 and by agitating with amyl acetate.
• Therapeutic uses
• Erythromycin is now widely used in medicine. It is effective against gram +
ve and – ve organisms.
• It is effective against streptococci, staphylococci, pneumococci, burns,
sepsis wounds infection diphtheria etc.
• Erythromycin is mainly absorbed from the small intestine.

• Erythromycin is an effective substitute for penicillin through its

antibacterial action is weaker than that benzyl penicillin.
 6. Therapeutics uses of Erythromycin
• Erythromycin is now widely use in medicine.
• it is effective against gram positive organism
and some of the gram negative organisms.
• It is effectives streptococci, staphylococci, h
influenzae, tonsilitis, burns, sepsis wound
infection, rickettsiae.
• Valuable in Patients allergic to penicillin.
• The drugs used for prophylaxis, rheumatic
fever, diphtheria.
 7.Rifamycin
• Rifamycin was isolated from the streptomyces mediterranei by
sensi et al in 1959.
• There are five types of rifamycin namely A,B,C,D and E. its most
stable component is rifamycin B.
• Therapeutics uses.
• It inhibit the growth of most gram + ve bacteria such as Escherichia
coli and kelebasiella etc.
• Rifamycin is used specially as an anti staphylococci drug.
• Rifamycin is well absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and it
block the biosynthesis of nucleic acid of the bacteria.
• Rifamycin is mainly used for the treatment of tuberculosis.
• It is also useful in the treatment of serious staphylococcal
septicemia.
Rifamycin
 Questions
• Define Antibiotics and certain conditions to satisfy as
antibiotics?
• Write the Classification of antibiotics ?
• Explain the Chloramphenicol and their therapeutic
effect?
• Explain the penicillin and their therapeutic effect ?
• Explain the streptomycin and their therapeutic effect?
• Explain the tetracyclines and their therapeutic effect?
• Explain the erythromycin and their therapeutic effect?
• Explain the Rifamycin and their therapeutic effect?