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virus strains infecting Ixodes scapularis in Connecticut. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2012,87(4):754–759.PubMedCrossRef 88. Raval M, Singhal M, Guerrero D, Alonto A: Powassan virus infection: case series and literature review from a single institution. BMC Res Notes 2012, 5:594.PubMedCentralPubMedCrossRef 89. Ytrehus B, Vainio K, Dudman SG, Gilray J, Willoughby K: Tick-borne encephalitis virus and louping-Ill virus may co-circulate in Southern Norway. Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis 2013,13(10):762–768.PubMedCrossRef Competing Compound Library clinical trial interests None of the authors have competing personal or financial interests relevant to the publication of this manuscript. We want to disclose that S.A.E.M. is among a group of inventors who earn royalties find more for molecular beacon usage. Authors’ contribution KC and NP designed the experiments, SAEM designed the molecular beacons and KC conducted the experiments. NP drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background The commercial importance of the actinomycete Streptomyces clavuligerus lies in its ability to produce several secondary metabolites of therapeutic interest

[1]. Among these compounds are: cephamycin C, a beta-lactam antibiotic more resistant to beta-lactamases than the structurally similar antibiotic cephalosporin C produced by filamentous fungi, and for this reason used as raw material for production of semi-synthetic antibiotics (cefotetan, cefoxitin, cefmetazole, and temocillin) [2, 3]; clavulanic acid, a beta-lactamases inhibitor whose use in conjunction with amoxicillin is the most important commercial example [4]; other clavams, which have antifungal properties [5]; and non-beta-lactam compounds such as

holomycin and tunicamycin, which have antibiotic and antitumor properties [5–7]. The biosynthetic diversity inherent to S. clavuligerus results in extremely complex metabolic regulation [8–14], which has led to different studies aimed at increasing the biosynthesis of relevant biocompounds. Among these compounds, cephamycin C has been one of the most extensively investigated [15–23]. The basic structure of this biocompound and of all other Cepharanthine beta-lactam antibiotics produced by prokaryotes or eukaryotes derives from L-cysteine, L-valine, and L-alpha-aminoadipic acid. In prokaryotes, alpha-aminoadipic acid is the product of lysine degradation via 1-piperideine-6-carboxylate [24–26]. The use of exogenous lysine to enhance cephamycin C biosynthesis in cultures of producer species has been known for over thirty years [16, 20, 23, 27, 28]. Studies have shown that high lysine concentrations (above 50 mmol l-1) promote higher cephamycin C production as compared to that of culture media containing little or no lysine.