Butremycin, the 3-hydroxyl derivative of ikarugamycin and a protonated aromatic tautomer of 5'-methylthioinosine from a Ghanaian Micromonospora sp. K310.

A new actinomycete strain Micromonospora sp. K310 was isolated from Ghanaian mangrove river sediment. Spectroscopy-guided fractionation led to the isolation of two new compounds from the fermentation culture. One of the compounds is butremycin (2) which is the (3-hydroxyl) derivative of the known Streptomyces metabolite ikarugamycin (1) and the other compound is a protonated aromatic tautomer of 5'-methylthioinosine (MTI) (3). Both new compounds were characterized by 1D, 2D NMR and MS data. Butremycin (2) displayed weak antibacterial activity against Gram-positive S. aureus ATCC 25923, the Gram-negative E. coli ATCC 25922 and a panel of clinical isolates of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strains while 3 did not show any antibacterial activity against these microbes.