Application Description
Spectrum: Kanamycin Sulfate is a broad-spectrum antibiotic but is most active against aerobic Gram-negative bacteria.
Microbiology Applications: Kanamycin Sulfate is commonly used as a selective agent to select for resistant mammalian, fungal, or bacterial cells that contain the kanMX marker or other Kanamycin resistance genes. Kanamycin Sulfate is typically used at a concentration of 50 µg/mL.
Kanamycin Sulfate is commonly used for in vitro microbiological antimicrobial susceptibility tests (panels, discs, and MIC strips) against Gram-positive and Gram-negative microbial isolates. Medical microbiologists use AST results to recommend antibiotic treatment options. For additional MIC data for Kanamycin Sulfate, visit our Antimicrobial Index.
Media Supplements
Kanamycin can be used as a selective agent in several types of isolation media:
Kanamycin Aesculin Azide Agar - Enterococci isolation in food
Perfringens Agar - SFP and TSC selective supplements for the isolation of Clostridium perfringens
Plant Biology Applications: Kanamycin is often used in the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation using the neomycin phosphotransferase gene (npt II gene) as a selection marker which confers resistance to Kanamycin (and G418).
Gene transfer to cereal cells (Triticum monococcum) mediated by protoplast transformation with naked DNA. Plasmid contained a gene of interest along with the NTP II gene, and transformed were selected in medium containing Kanamycin (Lorz et al 1985).
In a study of drought and salt tolerance, soybeans (DT84 cultivar) were genetically modified using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation to insert the GmDREB6 gene along with the nptII gene to select for plants resistant to Kanamycin. GmDREB6 is a dehydration-responsive element binding proteins (DREBs), a plant transcription factor that binds to specific region of promoter to activate expression of mechanisms to cope with cellular dehydration. Overexpression of GmDREB6 increased transcription levels of GmP5CS gene, which caused a higher intracellular proline content in plants growing under salt stress (Nguyen et al, 2019).
Eukaryotic Cell Culture Applications: Kanamycin Sulfate was used in an in vitro model system of Henle intestinal epithelial cell infection (Henle 407 cell line) by Shigella flexneri. Bactericidal levels of Kanamycin ablated infectivity of Shigella (Hale and Bonventre, 1979).
Cancer Applications: Kanamycin was used in an experimental mouse model of colorectal cancer. Following short-term induction of colitis by an irritant (dextran sulfate sodium), colon cancer cells (colon 26) were instilled intrarectally. The result was that tumors formed at the luminal mucosal surface. This model is useful to examine chemotherapeutic agents that may suppress the growth of colorectal cancer (Takahashi et al, 2004).