Tiacumicins are a family of
macrolide
Macrolides are a class of mostly natural products with a large macrocyclic lactone ring to which one or more deoxy sugars, usually cladinose and desosamine, may be attached. Macrolides belong to the polyketide class of natural products. ...
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting pathogenic bacteria, bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the therapy ...
s derived from ''
Dactylosporangium aurantiacum'' subspecies hamdenesis subspecies Nov. The tiacumicin family of antibiotics has substantial overlap with the
clostomicin family.
Six 18-membered antibiotics in the tiacumicin family have been identified: tiacumicins A through F.
Currently, only one of these, tiacumicin B (also lipiarmycin, clostomicin B
1) is commercially available, under the generic name
fidaxomicin
Fidaxomicin, sold under the brand name Dificid (by Merck) among others, is the first member of a class of narrow spectrum macrocyclic antibiotic drugs called tiacumicins. It is a fermentation product obtained from the actinomycete '' Dactylosp ...
.
References
{{antibiotic-stub
Macrolide antibiotics