Enrofloxacin is a fluoroquinolone antibacterial compound, used primarily in veterinary medicine, that has been detected in various natural waters.  Previous work has shown that enrofloxacin can degrade rapidly in some natural waters by direct photolysis, yielding a variety of photoproducts.  Select photoproducts were isolated by using HPLC equipped with a preparative column and collecting fractions manually.  Antibacterial activity testing was performed by measuring the growth inhibition of E. coli DH5a cells over six hours in the presence of varying concentrations of enrofloxacin or its photoproducts.  Through this testing, one of the major photoproducts of enrofloxacin was found to be biologically active.  Preliminary results suggest the product is as active as both enrofloxacin and another minor enrofloxacin photoproduct, ciprofloxacin.  The major active product was further isolated and characterized using high resolution mass spectrometry, NMR analysis, and a DNA supercoiling assay to study its mode of action.

Characterization of an active photoproduct of enrofloxacin

241st National Meeting (2011)

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