Polymyxins are non-ribosomal, cyclic oligopeptide antimicrobials, produced by the Gram-positive, spore-forming rod Bacillus aerosporus that were identified in 1946 from the soil of market gardens in England.
1. Introduction
Polymyxins are non-ribosomal, cyclic oligopeptide antimicrobials, produced by the Gram-positive, spore-forming rod
Bacillus aerosporus that were identified in 1946 from the soil of market gardens in England
[1]. Among the five antibiotics that belong to the polymyxin group, only two can be used in human and veterinary medicine: polymyxin B (PMB) and polymyxin E, also called colistin. Colistin sulfate is available for oral and topical use. PMB sulfate and colistin methanesulfonate sodium (CMS) are available for aerosol use and intravenous administration. PMB sulfate—available in North and South America, Southeast Asia and Japan—combines two components with direct antibacterial activity: PMB1 and PMB2. CMS is an essentially inactive prodrug that is hydrolyzed to multiple components with direct bactericidal activity. Among these colistin components, two are predominant, colistin A and colistin B. Colistin A and B are concentration-dependent antibiotics, active against multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-negative bacteria (GNB) such as carbapenemase-producing
Enterobacterales, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and
Acinetobacter baumannii. CMS is an inexpensive antibiotic massively used worldwide and considered as an essential antimicrobial agent by the World Health Organization
[2]. The CMS dose is labelled as “colistin base activity (CBA in mg)” in North and South America, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia and as “international units (IU)” in Europe and India. Milligrams of CBA and IU are expressions of the antibacterial activity measured in vitro and do not reflect a mass unit. The equivalence between absolute mass of CMS and IU or CBA is the following: