THE discovery of penicillin triggered the antibiotic revolution. But a forensic-style investigation of the lab in which Alexander Fleming discovered the fungus suggests it has been misidentified for 80 years.
and at Imperial College London looked at fungal samples still preserved in Fleming鈥檚 lab in London, and even swabbed his old notebook. They then compared them with samples from around the world.
Fleming thought his bacteria-killing fungus was , but genetic analysis of the samples showed that they comprised three previously unknown species as well as P. chrysogenum. The antibiotic fungus was one of the new species, and seems the most common of the four. 鈥淚t鈥檚 likely among the most common multicellular organisms on the planet,鈥� says Fisher (Molecular Ecology, ).
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The work could help others find new antibiotics. 鈥淲hen the US Department of Agriculture was looking for fungi with antimicrobial properties, it was sampling randomly,鈥� says Henk. His analysis suggests that doing so will throw up Fleming鈥檚 species most of the time. In future it will be possible to use the DNA sequences to confirm that wild samples carry something truly new and worth investigating.