Kinetic study on cephamycin C degradation.

Cephamycin C (CepC) is a β-lactam antibiotic that belongs to the cephalosporin class of drugs. This compound stands out from other cephalosporins for its greater resistance to β-lactamases, which are enzymes produced by pathogenic microorganisms that present a major mechanism of bacterial resistance to β-lactam antibiotics. Cephamycin C is produced by the bacterium Streptomyces clavuligerus. Knowledge about the stability of the compound under different values of pH is important for the development of the process of production, extraction, and purification aimed at obtaining higher yields. Therefore, the stability of cephamycin C under different pH levels (2.2, 6.0, 7.0, 7.6, and 8.7) at 20 °C was evaluated in this study. Ultrafiltered broth from batch fermentations of S. clavuligerus was used in the trials. The results indicated that cephamycin C is a more stable compound than other β-lactam compounds such as penicillin and clavulanic acid. A higher degradation rate was observed at very acidic or basic pH levels, while this rate was lower at quasi-neutral pH levels. After 100 h of trial, the initial CepC showed 46 % degradation at pH 2.2, 71 % degradation at pH 8.7, and varied from 15 to 20 % at quasi-neutral pH levels.