The preparation of iodinated vancomycin and its distribution in bacteria treated with the antibiotic

Abstract

Vancomycin was radioactively labelled by iodination with ¹²⁵I. Iodinated vancomycin was only a little less potent as an antibiotic than vancomycin itself. It was shown, both by chromatography and differential absorption measurements, to combine with acyl-d-alanyl-d-alanine residues. Radioactive vancomycin was used to follow the fate of the antibiotic in bacteria that had been subjected to the least concentration required to inhibit growth. Most of the radioactivity was in the cell walls, although some was found in the membrane fraction. The latter proportion increased during longer incubations with the antibiotic. Pre-formed protoplasts adsorbed very little vancomycin. Mg²⁺ removed labelled vancomycin from the mucopeptide of Bacillus licheniformis, but had little effect on the antibiotic adsorbed on Micrococcus lysodeikticus, either in vivo or on previously isolated cell walls. Specific peptide was shown to compete with cell walls for vancomycin and it also extracted from cell-wall samples the labelled compound that had been adsorbed on M. lysodeikticus living cells.