Background:The FabI inhibitor CG400549 is a promising new anti-staphylococcal drug candidate with recently validated human efficacy. Results: We revealed the molecular determinants conferring S. aureus FabI selectivity to rationally design a compound with an improved antibacterial activity spectrum. Conclusion:The 4-pyridone PT166 represents a critical step toward Gram-negative and mycobacterial coverage. Significance: We provide an approach to expand the spectrum of antimicrobial activity.

Summary The newly discovered FabV enoyl-ACP reductase, which catalyzes the last step of the bacterial fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS-II) pathway, is a promising but unexploited drug target against the re-emerging pathogen Yersinia pestis. The structure of the Y. pestis FabV in complex with its cofactor reveals that the enzyme features the common architecture of the short chain dehydrogenase reductase superfamily, but contains additional structural elements which are mostly folded around the usually flexible substrate binding loop, thereby stabilizing it in a very tight conformation that seals the active site. The structures of FabV in complex with NADH and two newly developed 2-pyridone inhibitors provide first insights for the development of new lead compounds, and suggest a mechanism by which the substrate binding-loop opens to admit the inhibitor, a motion that could also be coupled to the interaction of FabV with the acyl-carrier-protein substrate.

Phosphorylation is a major regulator of protein interactions; however, the mechanisms by which regulation occurs are not well understood. Here we identify a salt-bridge competition or "theft" mechanism that enables a phospho-triggered swap of protein partners by Raf Kinase Inhibitory Protein (RKIP). RKIP transitions from inhibiting Raf-1 to inhibiting G-protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 upon phosphorylation, thereby bridging MAP kinase and G-Protein-Coupled Receptor signaling. NMR and crystallography indicate that a phosphoserine, but not a phosphomimetic, competes for a lysine from a preexisting salt bridge, initiating a partial unfolding event and promoting new protein interactions. Structural elements underlying the theft occurred early in evolution and are found in 10% of homo-oligomers and 30% of hetero-oligomers including Bax, Troponin C, and Early Endosome Antigen 1. In contrast to a direct recognition of phosphorylated residues by binding partners, the salt-bridge theft mechanism represents a facile strategy for promoting or disrupting protein interactions using solvent-accessible residues, and it can provide additional specificity at protein interfaces through local unfolding or conformational change.

The enoyl-ACP reductase (ENR) catalyzes the last reaction in the elongation cycle of the bacterial type II fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS-II) pathway. While the FabI ENR is a well validated drug target in organisms such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Staphylococcus aureus, alternate ENR isoforms have been discovered in other pathogens including the FabV enzyme that is the sole ENR in Yersinia pestis (ypFabV). Previously, we showed that the prototypical ENR inhibitor triclosan was a poor inhibitor of ypFabV and that inhibitors based on the 2-pyridone scaffold were more potent. These studies were performed with the T276S FabV variant. In the present work, we describe a detailed examination of the mechanism and inhibition of wild-type ypFabV and the T276S variant. The T276S mutation significantly reduces the affinity of diphenyl ether inhibitors for ypFabV (20->100 fold). In addition, while T276S ypFabV generally displays higher affinity for 2-pyridone inhibitors compared to the wild-type enzyme, the 4-pyridone scaffold yields compounds with similar affinity for both wild-type and T276S ypFabV. T276 is located at the N-terminus of the helical substrate-binding loop, and structural studies coupled with site-directed mutagenesis reveal that alterations in this residue modulate the size of the active site portal. Subsequently we were able to probe the mechanism of time-dependent inhibition in this enzyme family by extending the inhibition studies to include P142W ypFabV, a mutation that results in gain of slow-onset inhibition for the 4-pyridone PT156.

There is growing awareness of the link between drug-target residence time and in vivo drug activity, and there are increasing efforts to determine the molecular factors that control the lifetime of a drug-target complex. Rational alterations in drug-target residence time require knowledge of both the ground and transition states on the inhibition reaction coordinate, and we have determined the structure-kinetic relationship for 22 ethyl or hexyl substituted diphenyl ethers that are slow-binding inhibitors of bpFabI1, the enoyl-ACP reductase FabI1 from Burkholderia pseudomallei. Analysis of enzyme inhibition using a 2D-kinetic map demonstrates that the ethyl and hexyl diphenyl ethers fall into two distinct clusters. Modifications to the ethyl diphenyl ether B ring result in changes to both on and off-rates, where residence times of up to ~700 min (~11 h) are achieved by either ground state stabilization (PT444) or transition state destabilization (slower on-rate) (PT404). By contrast, modifications to the hexyl diphenyl ether B ring result in residence times of 300 min (~5 h) through changes in only ground state stabilization (PT119). Structural analysis of 9 enzyme:inhibitor complexes reveal that the variation in structure-kinetic relationships can be rationalized by structural rearrangements of bpFabI1 and subtle changes to the orientation of the inhibitor in the binding pocket. Finally, we demonstrate that three compounds with residence times on bpFabI1 of between 118 min (~2 h) and 670 min (~11 h) have in vivo efficacy in an acute B. pseudomallei murine infection model using the virulent B. pseudomallei strain Bp400.