It was isolated as a yellow pigment from Streptomyces collinus and it shows antibacterial, antifungal, and antitumor activities.

[1] Naphthomycins have the longest ansa aliphatic carbon chain of the ansamycin family.

[2] Biosynthetic origins of the carbon skeleton from PKS1 were investigated by feeding 13C-labeled precursors and subsequent 13C-NMR product analysis.

Naphthomycin gene clusters have been cloned and sequenced to confirm involvement in biosynthesis via deletion of a 7.2kb region.

[3] Thirty-two genes were identified in the 106kb cluster.