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4 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 4
Accelerating Drug Discovery Efforts for Trypanosomatidic Infections Using an Integrated Transnational Academic Drug Discovery Platform.

Abstract (Expand)

According to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people are at risk of or are affected by neglected tropical diseases. Examples of such diseases include trypanosomiasis, which causes … sleeping sickness; leishmaniasis; and Chagas disease, all of which are prevalent in Africa, South America, and India. Our aim within the New Medicines for Trypanosomatidic Infections project was to use (1) synthetic and natural product libraries, (2) screening, and (3) a preclinical absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion-toxicity (ADME-Tox) profiling platform to identify compounds that can enter the trypanosomatidic drug discovery value chain. The synthetic compound libraries originated from multiple scaffolds with known antiparasitic activity and natural products from the Hypha Discovery MycoDiverse natural products library. Our focus was first to employ target-based screening to identify inhibitors of the protozoan Trypanosoma brucei pteridine reductase 1 ( TbPTR1) and second to use a Trypanosoma brucei phenotypic assay that made use of the T. brucei brucei parasite to identify compounds that inhibited cell growth and caused death. Some of the compounds underwent structure-activity relationship expansion and, when appropriate, were evaluated in a preclinical ADME-Tox assay panel. This preclinical platform has led to the identification of lead-like compounds as well as validated hits in the trypanosomatidic drug discovery value chain.

Authors: C. B. Moraes, G. Witt, M. Kuzikov, B. Ellinger, T. Calogeropoulou, K. C. Prousis, S. Mangani, F. Di Pisa, G. Landi, L. D. Iacono, C. Pozzi, L. H. Freitas-Junior, B. Dos Santos Pascoalino, C. P. Bertolacini, B. Behrens, O. Keminer, J. Leu, M. Wolf, J. Reinshagen, A. Cordeiro-da-Silva, N. Santarem, A. Venturelli, S. Wrigley, D. Karunakaran, B. Kebede, I. Pohner, W. Muller, J. Panecka-Hofman, R. C. Wade, M. Fenske, J. Clos, J. M. Alunda, M. J. Corral, E. Uliassi, M. L. Bolognesi, P. Linciano, A. Quotadamo, S. Ferrari, M. Santucci, C. Borsari, M. P. Costi, S. Gul

Date Published: 21st Feb 2019

Publication Type: Journal

Comparative mapping of on-targets and off-targets for the discovery of anti-trypanosomatid folate pathway inhibitors.

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: Multi-target approaches are necessary to properly analyze or modify the function of a biochemical pathway or a protein family. An example of such a problem is the repurposing of the known … human anti-cancer drugs, antifolates, as selective anti-parasitic agents. This requires considering a set of experimentally validated protein targets in the folate pathway of major pathogenic trypanosomatid parasites and humans: (i) the primary parasite on-targets: pteridine reductase 1 (PTR1) (absent in humans) and bifunctional dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS), (ii) the primary off-targets: human DHFR and TS, and (iii) the secondary on-target: human folate receptor beta, a folate/antifolate transporter. METHODS: We computationally compared the structural, dynamic and physico-chemical properties of the targets. We based our analysis on available inhibitory activity and crystallographic data, including a crystal structure of the bifunctional T. cruzi DHFR-TS with tetrahydrofolate bound determined in this work. Due to the low sequence and structural similarity of the targets analyzed, we employed a mapping of binding pockets based on the known common ligands, folate and methotrexate. RESULTS: Our analysis provides a set of practical strategies for the design of selective trypanosomatid folate pathway inhibitors, which are supported by enzyme inhibition measurements and crystallographic structures. CONCLUSIONS: The ligand-based comparative computational mapping of protein binding pockets provides a basis for repurposing of anti-folates and the design of new anti-trypanosmatid agents. GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE: Apart from the target-based discovery of selective compounds, our approach may be also applied for protein engineering or analyzing evolutionary relationships in protein families.

Authors: J. Panecka-Hofman, I. Pohner, F. Spyrakis, T. Zeppelin, F. Di Pisa, L. Dello Iacono, A. Bonucci, A. Quotadamo, A. Venturelli, S. Mangani, M. P. Costi, R. C. Wade

Date Published: 25th Sep 2017

Publication Type: Journal

Application of a simple quantum chemical approach to ligand fragment scoring for Trypanosoma brucei pteridine reductase 1 inhibition.

Abstract (Expand)

There is a need for improved and generally applicable scoring functions for fragment-based approaches to ligand design. Here, we evaluate the performance of a computationally efficient model for … inhibitory activity estimation, which is composed only of multipole electrostatic energy and dispersion energy terms that approximate long-range ab initio quantum mechanical interaction energies. We find that computed energies correlate well with inhibitory activity for a compound series with varying substituents targeting two subpockets of the binding site of Trypanosoma brucei pteridine reductase 1. For one subpocket, we find that the model is more predictive for inhibitory activity than the ab initio interaction energy calculated at the MP2 level. Furthermore, the model is found to outperform a commonly used empirical scoring method. Finally, we show that the results for the two subpockets can be combined, which suggests that this simple nonempirical scoring function could be applied in fragment-based drug design.

Authors: W. Jedwabny, J. Panecka-Hofman, E. Dyguda-Kazimierowicz, R. C. Wade, W. A. Sokalski

Date Published: 9th Jul 2017

Publication Type: Journal

TRAPP webserver: predicting protein binding site flexibility and detecting transient binding pockets.

Abstract (Expand)

The TRAnsient Pockets in Proteins (TRAPP) webserver provides an automated workflow that allows users to explore the dynamics of a protein binding site and to detect pockets or sub-pockets that may … transiently open due to protein internal motion. These transient or cryptic sub-pockets may be of interest in the design and optimization of small molecular inhibitors for a protein target of interest. The TRAPP workflow consists of the following three modules: (i) TRAPP structure- generation of an ensemble of structures using one or more of four possible molecular simulation methods; (ii) TRAPP analysis-superposition and clustering of the binding site conformations either in an ensemble of structures generated in step (i) or in PDB structures or trajectories uploaded by the user; and (iii) TRAPP pocket-detection, analysis, and visualization of the binding pocket dynamics and characteristics, such as volume, solvent-exposed area or properties of surrounding residues. A standard sequence conservation score per residue or a differential score per residue, for comparing on- and off-targets, can be calculated and displayed on the binding pocket for an uploaded multiple sequence alignment file, and known protein sequence annotations can be displayed simultaneously. The TRAPP webserver is freely available at http://trapp.h-its.org.

Authors: A. Stank, D. B. Kokh, M. Horn, E. Sizikova, R. Neil, J. Panecka, S. Richter, R. C. Wade

Date Published: 3rd Jul 2017

Publication Type: Journal

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