Duocarmycins, new antitumor antibiotics produced by Streptomyces; producing organisms and improved production.

Six duocarmycins have been discovered during our search for new antitumor antibiotics and they showed extremely potent cytotoxic activity with IC50 values of 10(-12) M-10(-9) M on HeLa S3 cell. Three different producing strains isolated from soils were taxonomically assigned as Streptomyces. Duocarmycin A was unstable in culture broth, so improved culture conditions were designed to produce a high titer of duocarmycins B1, B2, C1 and C2 which are halogenated seco-compounds of duocarmycin A. Duocarmycin SA, one of the most potent cytotoxic agents yet discovered, was shown to be more stable in culture media than duocarmycin A, despite the structural similarity on their spirocyclopropylhexadienone moiety. In contrast to the duocarmycin A fermentation, no halogenated seco-compounds of duocarmycin SA were detected in culture broth supplemented with Br- or Cl-. All duocarmycins could be produced using one producing strain with improved media and culture conditions.