# Discovery of MBL-AB01: a novel antibacterial xanthone antibiotic with high activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus

## TL;DR

A new antibiotic called MBL-AB01 was discovered from a rare marine bacteria and shows strong activity against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

## Contribution

MBL-AB01 is a novel polycyclic xanthone antibiotic with high efficacy against MRSA and other drug-resistant bacteria.

## Key findings

- MBL-AB01 showed high in vitro activity against six MRSA strains and three other Gram-positive bacteria.
- The compound was produced in high yields using bioreactor fermentations and mutagenesis techniques.
- The gene cluster responsible for MBL-AB01 production was identified and annotated.

## Abstract

A novel compound denoted MBL-AB01 was isolated from a marine Actinoalloteichus, which belongs to a rare and underexplored class of Actinobacteria. This work demonstrates that the novel compound MBL-AB01 shows very high activity in vitro against six methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains, and high activity against a panel of three other Gram-positive strains, including a vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. Structure elucidation of the compound revealed that MBL-AB01 is a polycyclic xanthone antibiotic closely related to the bioactive compounds: xantholipin and lysolipin. This class of antibiotics has caught interest due to its unique chemical structure and diverse biological activity. The gene cluster encoding MBL-AB01 production was identified, and the individual genes within the cluster were annotated along with proposed functional roles. The compound was produced by bioreactor fermentations, and significantly higher yields of MBL-AB01 were obtained after classical mutagenesis and fermentation process improvements.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections have become a great challenge in hospitals over the last decades, and MRSA is currently one of the six pathogens on the World Health Organization priority list. Here, we demonstrate that the novel antibiotic MBL-AB01 has excellent antibacterial properties against six S. aureus strains, including MRSA. MBL-AB01 belongs to the poorly explored class of polycyclic xanthones, thereby fulfilling innovation criteria for the development of new antibiotics. The compound can be produced in sufficient amounts for early formulation development and pre-clinical trials.