The Effect of Streptococcus pyogenes Extracts and Filtrates on Various Bacteria.

Bacteria as a source of antibiotic materials have been the object of intensive study. Some of the bacteria more recently investigated for antibiotic properties have been Chromobacterium violaceum by Lichstein and Van de Sand (1945) and the Bacillus subtilis group by various workers, among whom may be mentioned Salle and Jann (1945), Johnson, Anker, and Meleney (1945), Olivier, De Saint Rat, and Corvasier (1945), and Olivier (1946). Waksman (1941) and Waksman and Woodruff (1942) reviewed the earlier work in which bacteria were used as the source of antibiotic substances. Since most of the antagonistic bacteria thus far investigated are rod forms common to soil, air, and water, it was felt that the reactions of pathogenic gram-positive cocci would be interesting. Accordingly, investigations of the effects of extracts of Staphylococcus aureus organisms and of the media in which they were grown were made and the results reported in a previous paper (Nutini, Kelly, and McDowell, 1946). On the basis of earlier work with protein-free extracts of animal tissues (Nutini and Kreke, 1942; Nutini and Lynch, 1945; Nutini, Kreke, and Schroeder, 1945; Nutini, Thomas, and Smolar, 1945), the extracts of the organism were prepared in the same manner. In conjunction with this study, the effects of ultraviolet irradiation on the organisms and their media were observed. The present work is a continuation of this study using Streptococcus pyogenes as a source of material. The preparations consisted of (1) a protein-free alcohol extract of Streptococcus pyogenes cells; (2) a protein-free alcohol extract of the medium in which ultraviolet-irradiated and nonirradiated cultures of Streptococcus pyogenes were grown, and (3) an untreated sterile filtrate of the media from irradiated and nonirradiated cultures of Streptococcus pyogenes.