[3] E. terrae is one such bacterium affectionately named by scientists "microbial dark matter" cultivated by emerging scientific methods.
[3] After depositing the bacterium in the holes the iChip is covered on both sides by a semipermeable membrane and put into a box of the original soil.
[3] Ling et al. screened approximately 10,000 iChip growth isolates for prospective antimicrobial activity, and E. terrae seemed to be hopeful.
[1] This technology has potential for discovering even more antibiotics by allowing labs to grow previously "unculturable" microorganisms.
E. terrae grows and produces antibacterial activity under many different growth conditions, but optimally in R4 fermentation broth.
[1] Experiments performed by Ling et al. have shown teixobactin is capable of binding to lipid precursors of peptidoglycan, which makes up part of bacterial cell walls.
[1] The results did not show any resistance to teixobactin in the organisms that were studied, including Staphylococcus aureus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.