Many attempts have been made to elucidate the structure of viomycin, P strongly basic tuberculostatic streptomyces antibiotic (l-7). These studies led Bowie, CoX,Johnson and Thomas (6) tc present I and more recently Dyer, Kellogg, Nassar and Streetman (7) to propose II as the structure of viomycin. This report describes our determination of the amino acid sequence of viomy-Gin. NH-CO-C H~$H.(CH~)~-NH~ NH-CO-yH.CH2 OH NH2 CO OH &-NH2 ~H2~H.Co.CH.NH2...." cc0.j.'.
tH2.~ONHCONH2
Canplete acid hydrolysis of vianycin yielded the amino acids L-serine, L-9, 5-diamihopropionic acid (&pa), L+-lysine and viomycidine *l(ratio: 2:l:l:l) and urea, carbon dioxide and ammonia, as reported by others(5,6). Partial hydrolysis of viomycin was achieved with 1N hydrochloric acid at loC" for six hoar-s.
The hydrolysates were separated'by column chromatography on active charcoal, eluting with water, 5% acetic acid and 5% acetic acid-2G$ phenol. From the water eluate L-serine and urea were obtained.
The 5% acetic acid eluate was rechromatographed on an Amberlite CC-120 column and 6-lysine and peptide III isolated,[U$7ยฐ-20 (0.1% in H20) ; *1 Amino acid analyze were carried out, using an Hitachi Amino acid analyser KLA-5, with 50 cm.
Column.