In vivo antibacterial activity of vertilmicin, a new aminoglycoside antibiotic.

Vertilmicin is a novel aminoglycoside antibiotic with potent activity against gram-negative and -positive bacteria in vitro. In this study, we further evaluated the efficacy of vertilmicin in vivo in systemic and local infection animal models. We demonstrated that vertilmicin had relatively high and broad-spectrum activities against mouse systemic infections caused by Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Enterococcus faecalis. The 50% effective doses of subcutaneously administered vertilmicin were 0.63 to 0.82 mg/kg, 0.18 to 0.29 mg/kg, 0.25 to 0.99 mg/kg, and 4.35 to 7.11 mg/kg against E. coli, K. pneumoniae, S. aureus, and E. faecalis infections, respectively. The therapeutic efficacy of vertilmicin was generally similar to that of netimicin, better than that of gentamicin in all the isolates tested, and better than that of verdamicin against E. coli 9612 and E. faecalis HH22 infections. The therapeutic efficacy of vertilmicin was further confirmed in local infection models of rabbit skin burn infection and mouse ascending urinary tract infection.