Repurposing an inhibitor of ribosomal biogenesis with broad anti-fungal activity

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Authors
Sun, Nuo
Li, Dongmei
Zhang, Yuhan
Killeen, Kyle
Groutas, William C.
Calderone, Richard
Advisors
Issue Date
2017-12-05
Type
Article
Keywords
Candida-albicans , Antimicrobial agents , Drug-resistance , Thiosemicarbazones , Derivatives , Chelators , Mutant
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Citation
Sun, Nuo; Li, Dongmei; Zhang, Yuhan; Killeen, Kyle; Groutas, William C.; Calderone, Richard. 2017. Repurposing an inhibitor of ribosomal biogenesis with broad anti-fungal activity. Scientific Reports, vol. 7:Article number: 17014
Abstract

The lack of new antifungal compounds with unique mechanisms of action is a concern for therapeutic management of patients. To identify inhibitors against human pathogenic fungi, we screened similar to 3000 compounds provided by the Developmental Therapeutics Program of NIH/NCI against a panel of pathogenic fungi including Candida species, Aspergillus fumigatus, and Cryptococcus neoformans. NSC319726 (a thiosemicarbazone) had broad antifungal activity in the range of 0.1-2.0 mu g/ml and was also inhibitory to fluconazole-resistant isolates of Candida species. Synergy was demonstrated with NSC319726 and azoles, as well as caspofungin. The inhibitory concentration 50% (IC50) of NSC319726 was 35-800-fold higher than the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration 50% (MIC50 values), which indicates low compound toxicity to human cells in vitro. Transcriptome analysis of treated and untreated C. albicans using Gene Ontology (GO) revealed a large cluster of down regulated genes that encode translational proteins, especially those with ribosome biogenesis functions. As NSC319726 was first shown to have anti-cancer activity, its affects against human pathogenic fungi establish NSC319726 as a repurposed, off-patent compound that has potential antifungal activity. The minimal in vitro toxicity of lead optimized NSC319726 and its reasonable inhibitory activity against pathogens suggest advancing this compound to in vivo toxicity testing and protection studies against candidiasis.

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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal
Book Title
Series
Scientific Reports;v.7:Article number17014
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
2045-2322
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