Amphotericin B is a polyene antifungal isolated from Streptomyces species. While it has been suggested that Amphotericin B interacts with ergosterol of the fungal cell membrane leading to an altered cell membrane permeability and death, more recent studies show that the mechanism behind amphotericin B’s fungicidal activity is more complex. It is most effective against fungi and yeast and is often used against opportunistic fungal infections and leishmaniasis. Additionally, amphotericin B can be used to prevent growth of F. oxysporum in chickpea and P. triticina in wheat.

Ampicillin sodium is a member of the extended-spectrum β-lactam family and similar in structure to penicillin. It is used in the selection of antibiotic cell hybrids and has a high rate of action against many gram-negative bacterial strains. Ampicillin sodium targets non-ESBL (Extended Spectrum β-lactamase) bacteria including Staphylococcus and Streptococcus species and medically important enteric pathogens such as Shigella and Salmonella. It has been found to be effective against certain β-lactam sensitive VRE or vancomycin resistant Enterococcus species. Resistance to ampicillin is routinely utilized as a selectable marker to confirm successful cell transformation. Ampicillin Sodium is freely soluble in water.

Blasticidin S is an aminoacylnucleoside antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces griseochromogenes. It shows high efficacy against both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. Aside from its antimicrobial properties, blasticidin has displayed antiviral, antitumor, and antifungal properties and has been used as a selection agent. It has been used to select for cells containing the bls, bsr, or BSD resistance gene as well as HEK293-T cells and HEK-D5 cells. Additionally, blasticidin is effective in preventing cell culture contamination and studying protein synthesis.

Carbenicillin is a member of the penicillin β-lactam antibiotics. However, unlike most β-lactams, carbenicillin disodium is limited to primarily gram-negative bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and common enteric species. It can be used in selection protocols and is often preferred over ampicillin due to its increased stability. This allows for less contamination of unwanted bacterial colonies. In addition, carbenicillin has been used to regulate bacterial growth in plants, yielding low regeneration frequencies. It can be used in genetic transformation applications to select for AmpR transformed cells.

Cefotaxime is a third generation, broad-spectrum cephalosporin antibiotic effective against various gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. However, unlike many other cephalosporins, cefotaxime is not effective against Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. Cefotaxime is often used in Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformations to regulate bacterial growth. It has been shown to exhibit a synergistic effect with Vancomycin in certain conditions.

Chloramphenicol, USP Grade (CAS 56‑75‑7) is a high-purity antibiotic optimized for molecular biology applications, particularly in bacterial selection and plasmid amplification.

G-418 sulfate, also known as geneticin, is an aminoglycoside antibiotic similar in structure to gentamicin B1. It is commonly used in plant and mammalian cell culture as a selectable marker. It can be used to select for cells transformed with an iNOS promoter construct or neomycin resistance gene.

G-418 functions by causing a chain of nonsense mutations during translation, ultimately resulting in inhibition of polypeptide synthesis and protein elongation. Resistance to G-418 is conferred through the nptll gene in plant cells and the neo gene in mammalian cells, which encode aminoglycoside 3'-phosphotransferase. For gene selection applications, a kill curve can be made to determine the minimum effective G418 concentration to kill non-resistant cells. G418 disulfate is freely soluble in water.

Gentamicin is an aminoglycoside, broad-spectrum antibiotic that effectively inhibits Gram-negative and Gram-positive cell growth. Gentamicin's mode of action is to bind to the 30S ribosomal subunit and interfere with protein synthesis.

It is commonly used in clinical 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 infected patients.

Hygromycin B is an aminoglycoside antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces hygroscopicus. It is commonly used to study protein synthesis. Aside from its efficacy against bacteria, fungi, and higher eukaryotic cells, hygromycin B is also an antiviral agent inhibiting translation upon selectively entering cells made permeable due to viral infection. It works as a standard selection antibiotic in gene experiments, especially for selection of hygromycin resistance gene transformed cells.

Kanamycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces kanamyceticus. It is effective against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as Mycoplasma species. Kanamycin is commonly used to select for bacteria that have been transformed with a kanamycin-resistant gene and plant tissues that have the NPT II (APH3) gene incorporated in them. Kanamycin is very soluble in aqueous solution and is typically used in concentrations of 50-100 µg/ml.

Mitomycin C is an antineoplastic antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces caespitosus. It is effective against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria and a variety of cancer cells, including Ehrlich ascites tumor cells. Mitomycin C has been used to produce mitotically inactivated feeder cells and has been shown to increase recombination during fruit fly meiosis. It is capable of killing mutant strains of Arabidopsis that are defective for recombination during meiosis.

Mitomycin C functions as a DNA crosslinking agent, inhibiting DNA synthesis.

Neomycin is a broad-spectrum aminoglycoside antibiotic isolated from Streptomyces species. It targets gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. Neomycin can also be used as a selection agent for prokaryotic cells transformed with the neo gene or NPT II resistance gene and to study toxic antibacterial side effects. In addition, neomycin is a calcium channel protein inhibitor and DNase I inhibitor. It can be used in a variety of cell culture applications