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Science 25 March 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5717, p. 1867
DOI: 10.1126/science.307.5717.1867a
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Random Samples

Figure 1 After Alexander Fleming stumbled upon penicillin in 1928, a problem with his find surfaced: The mold that made the drug, Penicillium notatum, only did so in small quantities. In 1943, scientists turned to another species of mold: one discovered on cantaloupe that today churns out 1000 times more penicillin. A single genetic mutation, it now turns out, explains the cantaloupe strain's superlative production.

To make penicillin, mold first produces a precursor acid. The acid can be converted into either penicillin or another chemical, 2-hydroxy-PA, but José Luis Barredo and colleagues at Antibióticos, a pharmaceutical company in Leon, Spain, found that P. chrysogenum, the high-producing species, has a gene defect that prevents it from producing much of the latter. So it's stuck with making penicillin instead, the researchers report online this month in Fungal Genetics and Biology.

CREDIT: ANDREW MCCLENAGHAN/PHOTO RESEARCHERS INC.




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