Pristinamycin

Pristinamycin (INN), also spelled pristinamycine, is an antibiotic used primarily in the treatment of staphylococcal infections, and to a lesser extent streptococcal infections. It is a streptogramin group antibiotic, similar to virginiamycin, derived from the bacterium Streptomyces pristinaespiralis. It is marketed in Europe by Sanofi-Aventis under the trade name Synercid and Pyostacine.

Pristinamycin is a mixture of two components that have a synergistic antibacterial action. Pristinamycin IA is a macrolide, and results in pristinamycin having a similar spectrum of action to erythromycin. Pristinamycin IIA (streptogramin A) is a depsipeptide. PI and PII are coproduced by S. pristinaespiralis in a ratio of 30:70. Each compound binds to the bacterial 50 S ribosomal subunit and inhibits the elongation process of the protein synthesis, thereby exhibiting only a moderate bacteriostatic activity. However, the combination of both substances acts synergistically and leads to a potent bactericidal activity that can reach up to 100 times that of the separate components.

The pristinamycin biosynthetic gene cluster is the largest antibiotic supercluster known so far with a size of ~210 kb, where the PI and PII biosynthetic genes are not clustered individually but are scattered across the complete sequence region. Furthermore, this biosynthetic gene region is interrupted by a cryptic type II PKS gene cluster.