Future potential for anti-infectives from bacteria - how to exploit biodiversity and genomic potential

Strategies for the Discovery and Development of New Antibiotics from Natural Products: Three Case Studies

Natural products continue to be a predominant source for new anti-infective agents. Research at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) is dedicated to the development of new lead structures against infectious diseases and, in particular, new antibiotics against hard-to-treat and multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens. In this chapter, we introduce some of the concepts currently being employed in the field of antibiotic discovery. In particular, we will exemplarily illustrate three approaches: (1) Current sources for novel compounds are mainly soil-dwelling bacteria. In the course of our antimicrobial discovery program, a biodiverse collection of myxobacterial strains has been established and screened for antibiotic activities. Based on this effort, one successful example is presented in this chapter: Antibacterial cystobactamids were discovered and their molecular target, the DNA gyrase, was identified soon after the analysis of myxobacterial self-resistance making use of the information found in the respective biosynthesis gene cluster. (2) Besides our focus on novel natural products, we also apply strategies to further develop either neglected drugs or widely used antibiotics for which development of resistance in the clinical setting is an issue: Antimycobacterial griselimycins were first described in the 1960s but their development and use in tuberculosis therapy was not further pursued. We show how a griselimycin derivative with improved pharmacokinetic properties and enhanced potency against Mycobacterium tuberculosis revealed and validated a novel target for antibacterial therapy, the DNA sliding clamp. (3) In a third approach, biosynthetic engineering was used to modify and optimize natural products regarding their pharmaceutical properties and their production scale: The atypical tetracycline chelocardin is a natural product scaffold that was modified to yield a more potent derivative exhibiting activity against multidrug-resistant pathogens. This was achieved by genetic engineering of the producer strain and the resulting compound is now subject to further optimization by medicinal chemistry approaches.

Combining Mass Spectrometric Metabolic Profiling with Genomic Analysis: A Powerful Approach for Discovering Natural Products from Cyanobacteria

An innovative approach was developed for the discovery of new natural products by combining mass spectrometric metabolic profiling with genomic analysis and resulted in the discovery of the columbamides, a new class of di- and trichlorinated acyl amides with cannabinomimetic activity. Three species of cultured marine cyanobacteria, Moorea producens 3L, Moorea producens JHB, and Moorea bouillonii PNG, were subjected to genome sequencing and analysis for their recognizable biosynthetic pathways, and this information was then compared with their respective metabolomes as detected by MS profiling. By genome analysis, a presumed regulatory domain was identified upstream of several previously described biosynthetic gene clusters in two of these cyanobacteria, M. producens 3L and M. producens JHB. A similar regulatory domain was identified in the M. bouillonii PNG genome, and a corresponding downstream biosynthetic gene cluster was located and carefully analyzed. Subsequently, MS-based molecular networking identified a series of candidate products, and these were isolated and their structures rigorously established. On the basis of their distinctive acyl amide structure, the most prevalent metabolite was evaluated for cannabinomimetic properties and found to be moderate affinity ligands for CB1.

Elicitation of secondary metabolism in actinomycetes

Genomic sequence data have revealed the presence of a large fraction of putatively silent biosynthetic gene clusters in the genomes of actinomycetes that encode for secondary metabolites, which are not detected under standard fermentation conditions. This review focuses on the effects of biological (co-cultivation), chemical, as well as molecular elicitation on secondary metabolism in actinomycetes. Our review covers the literature until June 2014 and exemplifies the diversity of natural products that have been recovered by such approaches from the phylum Actinobacteria.

Synthetic biology advances for pharmaceutical production

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Synthetic biology is quickly moving from proof of concept to industrial application.

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Pharmaceuticals are a promising target for advanced genetic engineering.

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Genome sequence data indicate vast underexploited biosynthetic capacity.

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Synthetic biology can create libraries of novel chemicals enriched for bioactivity.

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Synthetic biology expands the range of available chassis organisms for industry.

Synthetic biology enables a new generation of microbial engineering for the biotechnological production of pharmaceuticals and other high-value chemicals. This review presents an overview of recent advances in the field, describing new computational and experimental tools for the discovery, optimization and production of bioactive molecules, and outlining progress towards the application of these tools to pharmaceutical production systems.

Construction of a new class of tetracycline lead structures with potent antibacterial activity through biosynthetic engineering

Antimicrobial resistance and the shortage of novel antibiotics have led to an urgent need for new antibacterial drug leads. Several existing natural product scaffolds (including chelocardins) have not been developed because their suboptimal pharmacological properties could not be addressed at the time. It is demonstrated here that reviving such compounds through the application of biosynthetic engineering can deliver novel drug candidates. Through a rational approach, the carboxamido moiety of tetracyclines (an important structural feature for their bioactivity) was introduced into the chelocardins, which are atypical tetracyclines with an unknown mode of action. A broad-spectrum antibiotic lead was generated with significantly improved activity, including against all Gram-negative pathogens of the ESKAPE panel. Since the lead structure is also amenable to further chemical modification, it is a platform for further development through medicinal chemistry and genetic engineering.

Nannozinones and sorazinones, unprecedented pyrazinones from myxobacteria

Nannozinones A (1) and B (2) were discovered as metabolites of the recently isolated Nannocystis pusilla strain MNa10913 belonging to the poorly studied myxobacterial family Nannocystaceae. In contrast, the structurally related sorazinones A (5) and B (6) were isolated from Sorangium cellulosum strain Soce895, which was known as the producer of the antibiotic thuggacin A. The extract also contained methyl indole-3-carboxylate (4). HRESIMS and (1)H, (13)C, and (15)N NMR spectroscopy revealed the structures of nannozinones A (1) and B (2) as unusual dihydropyrrolo- and pyrrolopyrazinone derivatives, while sorazinone A (5) was characterized as an aromatic diketopiperazine and sorazinone B (6) as a dibenzyl 2(1H)-pyrazinone derivative. While the dihydropyrrolo derivative nannozinone A (1) showed weak antibacterial and antifungal activity, nannozinone B (2) inhibited the growth of cell cultures with IC50 values between 2.44 and 16.9 μM. The nannochelin A iron complex (3), which was isolated besides 1 and 2, was even more active, with IC50 values between 0.05 and 1.95 μM. On the other hand, the indole 4 and sorazinones 5 and 6 did not show any significant cytotoxicity and only weak activity against the Gram-positive Nocardia sp.

Improving natural products identification through targeted LC-MS/MS in an untargeted secondary metabolomics workflow

Tandem mass spectrometry is a widely applied and highly sensitive technique for the discovery and characterization of microbial natural products such as secondary metabolites from myxobacteria. Here, a data mining workflow based on MS/MS precursor lists targeting only signals related to bacterial metabolism is established using LC-MS data of crude extracts from shaking flask fermentations. The devised method is not biased toward specific compound classes or structural features and is capable of increasing the information content of LC-MS/MS analyses by directing fragmentation events to signals of interest. The approach is thus contrary to typical auto-MS(2) setups where precursor ions are usually selected according to signal intensity, which is regarded as a drawback for metabolite discovery applications when samples contain many overlapping signals and the most intense signals do not necessarily represent compounds of interest. In line with this, the method described here achieves improved MS/MS scan coverage for low-abundance precursor ions not captured by auto-MS(2) experiments and thereby facilitates the search for new secondary metabolites in complex biological samples. To underpin the effectiveness of the approach, the identification and structure elucidation of two new myxobacterial secondary metabolite classes is reported.

Disciformycins A and B: 12-membered macrolide glycoside antibiotics from the myxobacterium Pyxidicoccus fallax active against multiresistant staphylococci

Two macrolide glycosides with a unique scaffold were isolated from cultures of the myxobacterium Pyxidicoccus fallax. Their structures, including absolute configurations, were elucidated by a combination of NMR, MS, degradation, and molecular modeling techniques. Analysis of the proposed biosynthetic gene cluster led to insights into the biosynthesis of the polyketide and confirmed the structure assignment. The more active compound, disciformycin B, potently inhibits methicillin- and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Biosynthesis of crocacin involves an unusual hydrolytic release domain showing similarity to condensation domains

The crocacins are potent antifungal and cytotoxic natural compounds from myxobacteria of the genus Chondromyces. Although total synthesis approaches have been reported, the molecular and biochemical basis guiding the formation of the linear crocacin scaffold has remained unknown. Along with the identification and functional analysis of the crocacin biosynthetic gene cluster from Chondromyces crocatus Cm c5, we here present the identification and biochemical characterization of an unusual chain termination domain homologous to condensation domains responsible for hydrolytic release of the product from the assembly line. In particular, gene inactivation studies and in vitro experiments using the heterologously produced domain CroK-C2 confirm this surprising role giving rise to the linear carboxylic acid. Additionally, we determined the kinetic parameters of CroK-C2 by monitoring hydrolytic cleavage of the substrate mimic N-acetylcysteaminyl-crocacin B using an innovative high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry-based assay.

Genomics-guided discovery of endophenazines from Kitasatospora sp. HKI 714

In this study we report on the genomics-guided exploration of the metabolic potential of the newly discovered strain Kitasatospora sp. HKI 714. The bioinformatics analysis of the whole genome sequence revealed the presence of a biosynthetic gene cluster presumably responsible for the biosynthesis of formerly unknown endophenazine derivatives. A 200 L cultivation combined with bioactivity-guided isolation techniques revealed four new natural products belonging to the endophenazines and the 5,10-dihydrophenazines. Detailed descriptions of their biological effects, mainly focused on antimicrobial properties against several mycobacteria, are given.