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Batista FA, Bosch SS, Butzloff S, Lunev S, Meissner KA, Linzke M, Romero AR, Wang C, Müller IB, Dömling ASS, Groves MR, Wrenger C. Oligomeric protein interference validates druggability of aspartate interconversion in Plasmodium falciparum. Microbiologyopen 2019; 8:e00779. [PMID: 30821109 PMCID: PMC6612543 DOI: 10.1002/mbo3.779] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2018] [Revised: 11/14/2018] [Accepted: 11/15/2018] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
The appearance of multi-drug resistant strains of malaria poses a major challenge to human health and validated drug targets are urgently required. To define a protein's function in vivo and thereby validate it as a drug target, highly specific tools are required that modify protein function with minimal cross-reactivity. While modern genetic approaches often offer the desired level of target specificity, applying these techniques is frequently challenging-particularly in the most dangerous malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. Our hypothesis is that such challenges can be addressed by incorporating mutant proteins within oligomeric protein complexes of the target organism in vivo. In this manuscript, we provide data to support our hypothesis by demonstrating that recombinant expression of mutant proteins within P. falciparum leverages the native protein oligomeric state to influence protein function in vivo, thereby providing a rapid validation of potential drug targets. Our data show that interference with aspartate metabolism in vivo leads to a significant hindrance in parasite survival and strongly suggest that enzymes integral to aspartate metabolism are promising targets for the discovery of novel antimalarials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fernando A. Batista
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Soraya S. Bosch
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical SciencesUniversity of São PauloSão PauloBrazil
| | - Sabine Butzloff
- LG MüllerBernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical MedicineHamburgGermany
| | - Sergey Lunev
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Kamila A. Meissner
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical SciencesUniversity of São PauloSão PauloBrazil
| | - Marleen Linzke
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical SciencesUniversity of São PauloSão PauloBrazil
| | - Atilio R. Romero
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Chao Wang
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Ingrid B. Müller
- LG MüllerBernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical MedicineHamburgGermany
| | - Alexander S. S. Dömling
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Matthew R. Groves
- Department of Pharmacy, Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug DesignUniversity of GroningenGroningenThe Netherlands
| | - Carsten Wrenger
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical SciencesUniversity of São PauloSão PauloBrazil
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Lunev S, Butzloff S, Romero AR, Linzke M, Batista FA, Meissner KA, Müller IB, Adawy A, Wrenger C, Groves MR. Oligomeric interfaces as a tool in drug discovery: Specific interference with activity of malate dehydrogenase of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0195011. [PMID: 29694407 PMCID: PMC5919072 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0195011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2017] [Accepted: 02/28/2018] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Malaria remains a major threat to human health, as strains resistant to current therapeutics are discovered. Efforts in finding new drug targets are hampered by the lack of sufficiently specific tools to provide target validation prior to initiating expensive drug discovery projects. Thus, new approaches that can rapidly enable drug target validation are of significant interest. In this manuscript we present the crystal structure of malate dehydrogenase from Plasmodium falciparum (PfMDH) at 2.4 Å resolution and structure-based mutagenic experiments interfering with the inter-oligomeric interactions of the enzyme. We report decreased thermal stability, significantly decreased specific activity and kinetic parameters of PfMDH mutants upon mutagenic disruption of either oligomeric interface. In contrast, stabilization of one of the interfaces resulted in increased thermal stability, increased substrate/cofactor affinity and hyperactivity of the enzyme towards malate production at sub-millimolar substrate concentrations. Furthermore, the presented data show that our designed PfMDH mutant could be used as specific inhibitor of the wild type PfMDH activity, as mutated PfMDH copies were shown to be able to self-incorporate into the native assembly upon introduction in vitro, yielding deactivated mutant:wild-type species. These data provide an insight into the role of oligomeric assembly in regulation of PfMDH activity and reveal that recombinant mutants could be used as probe tool for specific modification of the wild type PfMDH activity, thus offering the potential to validate its druggability in vivo without recourse to complex genetics or initial tool compounds. Such tool compounds often lack specificity between host or pathogen proteins (or are toxic in in vivo trials) and result in difficulties in assessing cause and effect-particularly in cases when the enzymes of interest possess close homologs within the human host. Furthermore, our oligomeric interference approach could be used in the future in order to assess druggability of other challenging human pathogen drug targets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sergey Lunev
- Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug Design, Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Sabine Butzloff
- LG Müller, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Atilio R. Romero
- Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug Design, Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Marleen Linzke
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, Saõ Paulo, Brazil
| | - Fernando A. Batista
- Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug Design, Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Kamila A. Meissner
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, Saõ Paulo, Brazil
| | - Ingrid B. Müller
- LG Müller, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Alaa Adawy
- Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug Design, Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
| | - Carsten Wrenger
- Unit for Drug Discovery, Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, Saõ Paulo, Brazil
- * E-mail: (MRG); (CW)
| | - Matthew R. Groves
- Structural Biology Unit, XB20 Drug Design, Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- * E-mail: (MRG); (CW)
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