Publication
Article Metrics
Citations
Online attention
Biochemical and structural characterization of mycobacterial aspartyl-tRNA synthetase AspS, a promising TB drug target
DOI:
10.1371/journal.pone.0113568
PMID:
25409504
Authors:
Sudagar S.
Gurcha
(University of Birmingham)
,
Veeraraghavan
Usha
(University of Birmingham)
,
Jonathan A. G.
Cox
(University of Birmingham)
,
Klaus
Futterer
(University of Birmingham)
,
K
Abrahams
(University of Birmingham)
,
Apoorva
Bhatt
(University of Birmingham)
,
Luke
Alderwick
(University of Birmingham)
,
Robert C.
Reynolds
(University of Alabama at Birmingham)
,
Nicholas J.
Loman
(University of Birmingham)
,
Vijayashankar
Nataraj
(University of Birmingham)
,
Carlos
Alemparte
(GlaxoSmithKline)
,
David
Barros
(GlaxoSmithKline)
,
Adrian J.
Lloyd
(University of Warwick)
,
Lluis
Ballell
(GlaxoSmithKline)
,
Judith V.
Hobrath
(Southern Research Institute (USA))
,
Gurdyal S.
Besra
(University of Birmingham)
Co-authored by industrial partner:
Yes
Type:
Journal Paper
Journal:
Plos One
, VOL 9 (11)
State:
Published (Approved)
Published:
November 2014
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
10369

Abstract: The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), a disease with high worldwide mortality rates. Current treatment programs are under significant threat from multi-drug and extensively-drug resistant strains of M. tuberculosis, and it is essential to identify new inhibitors and their targets. We generated spontaneous resistant mutants in Mycobacterium bovis BCG in the presence of 10× the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of compound 1, a previously identified potent inhibitor of mycobacterial growth in culture. Whole genome sequencing of two resistant mutants revealed in one case a single nucleotide polymorphism in the gene aspS at 535GAC>535AAC (D179N), while in the second mutant a single nucleotide polymorphism was identified upstream of the aspS promoter region. We probed whole cell target engagement by overexpressing either M. bovis BCG aspS or Mycobacterium smegmatis aspS, which resulted in a ten-fold and greater than ten-fold increase, respectively, of the MIC against compound 1. To analyse the impact of inhibitor 1 on M. tuberculosis AspS (Mt-AspS) activity we over-expressed, purified and characterised the kinetics of this enzyme using a robust tRNA-independent assay adapted to a high-throughput screening format. Finally, to aid hit-to-lead optimization, the crystal structure of apo M. smegmatis AspS was determined to a resolution of 2.4 Å.
Journal Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis; Mycobacterium bovis; Crystal structure; Library screening; Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction; Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases; Polymerase chain reaction; Single nucleotide polymorphisms
Diamond Keywords: Tuberculosis (TB); Bacteria
Subject Areas:
Biology and Bio-materials,
Medicine,
Chemistry
Instruments:
I04-Macromolecular Crystallography
Other Facilities: Home source was used in addition to data sets recorded at Diamond.
Added On:
27/03/2015 17:20
Documents:
file-4.pdf
Discipline Tags:
Pathogens
Infectious Diseases
Health & Wellbeing
Biochemistry
Chemistry
Structural biology
Drug Discovery
Life Sciences & Biotech
Technical Tags:
Diffraction
Macromolecular Crystallography (MX)