BackgroundThe protozoan parasite Cryptosporidium parvum is responsible for significant disease burden among children in developing countries. In addition Cryptosporidiosis can result in chronic and life-threatening enteritis in AIDS patients, and the currently available drugs lack efficacy in treating these severe conditions. The discovery and development of novel anti-cryptosporidial therapeutics has been hampered by the poor experimental tractability of this pathogen. While the genome sequencing effort has identified several intriguing new targets including a unique inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), pursuing these targets and testing inhibitors has been frustratingly difficult.Methodology and Principal FindingsHere we have developed a pipeline of tools to accelerate the in vivo screening of inhibitors of C. parvum IMPDH. We have genetically engineered the related parasite Toxoplasma gondii to serve as a model of C. parvum infection as the first screen. This assay provides crucial target validation and a large signal window that is currently not possible in assays involving C. parvum. To further develop compounds that pass this first filter, we established a fluorescence-based assay of host cell proliferation, and a C. parvum growth assay that utilizes automated high-content imaging analysis for enhanced throughput.Conclusions and SignificanceWe have used these assays to evaluate C. parvum IMPDH inhibitors emerging from our ongoing medicinal chemistry effort and have identified a subset of 1,2,3-triazole ethers that exhibit excellent in vivo selectivity in the T. gondii model and improved anti-cryptosporidial activity.
Cryptosporidium parvum is an important human pathogen and potential bioterrorism agent. This protozoan parasite cannot salvage guanine or guanosine and therefore relies on inosine 5′-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH) for biosynthesis of guanine nucleotides and hence for survival. Since C. parvum IMPDH is highly divergent from the host counterpart, selective inhibitors could potentially be used to treat cryptosporidiosis with minimal effects on its mammalian host. A series of 1,2,3-triazole containing ether CpIMPDH inhibitors are described. A structure-activity relationship study revealed that a small alkyl group on the alpha-position of the ether was required with the (R)-enantiomer significantly more active than the (S)-enantiomer. Electron-withdrawing groups in the 3-and/or 4-positions of the pendent phenyl ring were best and conversion of the quinoline containing inhibitors to quinoline-N-oxides retained inhibitory activity both in the presence and absence of bovine serum albumin. The 1,2,3-triazole CpIMPDH inhibitors provide new tools for elucidating the role of IMPDH in C. parvum and may serve as potential therapeutics for treating cryptosporidiosis.
The World Health Organization has categorized the Gram-negative superbugs, which are inherently impervious to many antibiotics, as critical priority pathogens due to the lack of effective treatments. The breach in our last-resort antibiotic (i.e., colistin) by extensively drug-resistant and pan-drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae strains demands the immediate development of new therapies. In the present study, we report the discovery of tridecaptin M, a new addition to the family, and its potential against colistin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae in vitro and in vivo. Also, we performed mode-of-action studies using various fluorescent probes and studied the hemolytic activity and mammalian cytotoxicity in two cell lines. Tridecaptin M displayed strong antibacterial activity (MICs of 2 to 8 μg ml−1) against clinical strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae (which were resistant to colistin, carbapenems, third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones, fosfomycin, and other antibiotics) and mcr-1-positive Escherichia coli strains. Unlike polymyxins, tridecaptin M did not permeabilize the outer membrane or cytoplasmic membrane. It blocked ATP synthesis in bacteria by dissipating the proton motive force. The compound exhibited negligible acquired resistance, low in vitro cytotoxicity and hemolytic activity, and no significant acute toxicity in mice. It also showed promising efficacy in a thigh infection model of colistin-resistant K. pneumoniae. Altogether, these results demonstrate the future prospects of this class of antibiotics to address the unmet medical need to circumvent colistin resistance in extensively drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae infections. The work also emphasizes the importance of natural products in our shrunken drug discovery pipeline.
Secondary benzylic alcohols represent a challenging class of substrates for N-alkylation of amines. Herein, we describe an iron(II)-catalyzed eco-friendly protocol for N-alkylation of secondary arylamines with secondary benzyl alcohols through a carbocationic pathway instead of the known borrowing hydrogen transfer (BHT) approach. Transiently generated carbocations, produced from alcohols via self-condensation, were coupled with arylamines to provide highly functionalized amine products. The scope of this methodology involves N-alkylation of primary, secondary and heterocyclic amines with primary/secondary benzylic, allylic and heterocyclic alcohols, which are common key structures in numerous pharmaceuticals drugs. The method can also be easily adopted for the amination of various natural products.
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