Production of new erythromicin derivatives with antimalaria properties

HUGO GRAMAJO

Workshop; Workshop in Natural Products to combat diseases in the developing world; 2016

AbstractLatin america have several endemic neglected diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, together with other vectorial diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and now zyka. Therefore, there is a strong need of new drugs to fight them. Although we do have areas with a reach biodiversity we still do not have institutes or organizations in the life sciences field whose mission focuses on the isolation, authentication, production, preservation, development and distribution of standard reference microorganisms. I will discuss the possibility of organizing this sort of culture collection centers and propose some laboratories that would like to be involved in such goal. I will also present our knowledge and experience in the heterologous expression of polyketide synthases (PKS) and sugar pathways in E. coli for the biosynthesis of new polyketides derivatives with antibacterial or more potent antiparasitic activities. The latter work involves the chemiobiosyntesis of new derivatives of the macrolide antibiotics erythromycin and azithromycin with better anti plasmodium activity.