Carbenicillin
chemical compound
Carbenicillin is a bactericidal antibiotic belonging to the carboxypenicillin subgroup of the penicillins. It was discovered by scientists at Beecham and marketed as Pyopen. It has Gram-negative coverage which includes Pseudomonas aeruginosa but limited Gram-positive coverage. The carboxypenicillins are susceptible to degradation by beta-lactamase enzymes, although they are more resistant than ampicillin to degradation. Carbenicillin is also more stable at lower pH than ampicillin.
Pharmacology
The antibiotic is highly soluble in water and is acid-labile. A typical lab working concentration is 50 to 100 μg per mL.
It is a semi-synthetic analogue of the naturally occurring benzylpenicillin. Carbenicillin at high doses can cause bleeding. Use of carbenicillin can cause hypokalemia by promoting potassium loss at the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney.
In molecular biology, carbenicillin may be preferred as a selecting agent (see plasmid stabilisation technology) because its breakdown results in byproducts with a lower toxicity than analogous antibiotics like ampicillin.
The public source identifies “Carbenicillin” as chemical compound. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carbenicillin, chemical and compound.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1050019. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carbenicillin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.