STREPTOMYCES SP PRODUCING TAUTOMYCETIN AND IMMUNOSUPPRESSANT COMPRISING TAUTOMYCETIN AS ACTIVE INGREDIENT

The present invention relates to Streptomyces sp. producing tautomycetin which possesses an immunosuppressive or antibacterial activities, a process for preparing tautomycetin from the said microorganism, and an immunosuppressant or immunosuppressive pharmaceutical composition comprising tautomycetin as an active ingredient which suppresses interleukin-2 production, CD69 and interleukin-2 receptor(IL-2R) expression on the cell surface, and graft rejection in the organ transplantation. The present inventors isolated a soil microorganism which produces a substance possessing antibiotic and immunosuppressive activities, and identified the said microorganism and substance as a novel Streptomyces sp. and tautomycetin, respectively. Further, the present inventors developed a method of manufacturing the tautomycetin in a large scale from the culture of the said microorganism and discovered that tautomycetin suppresses mouse mixed lymphocyte reaction(MLR) and the expression of IL-2 based on a series of experiments employing cell line transfected with a recombinant gene.