2 ms·

What? Every single compound that ends in -mycin/-micin comes from bacteria. Erythromycin Azithromycin Tobramycin Kanamycin Clindamycin Clarithromycin Gentamic

• Retric 7y ago
  That’s from something like 1 trillion bacteria species vs 300k plant species. Considering we have 120+ important medical compounds from plants we would need ~400,000 from bacteria for each species to have equal weight. Further, fighting bacteria is a connection between us and bacteria so deriving an antibiotic is an obvious connection. Looking for say an anti cholesterol drug on the other hand and your stuck with random interactions.
  • dnautics 7y ago
    normalizing by number of species (which is a vague concept anyways, most species nomenclature in bacteria is driven by the need to publish - salmonella and e coli are basically the same) is completely irrelevant concept for this discussion. When you're looking for 'random interactions' most chemists reach for combichem anyways. Look at all of the drugs that treat CML - (gleevec eg) none of them come from any biotic source.