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  • Large-scale chemical-genetics yields new M. tuberculosis inhibitor classes.

Large-scale chemical-genetics yields new M. tuberculosis inhibitor classes.

Nature (2019-06-21)
Eachan O Johnson, Emily LaVerriere, Emma Office, Mary Stanley, Elisabeth Meyer, Tomohiko Kawate, James E Gomez, Rebecca E Audette, Nirmalya Bandyopadhyay, Natalia Betancourt, Kayla Delano, Israel Da Silva, Joshua Davis, Christina Gallo, Michelle Gardner, Aaron J Golas, Kristine M Guinn, Sofia Kennedy, Rebecca Korn, Jennifer A McConnell, Caitlin E Moss, Kenan C Murphy, Raymond M Nietupski, Kadamba G Papavinasasundaram, Jessica T Pinkham, Paula A Pino, Megan K Proulx, Nadine Ruecker, Naomi Song, Matthew Thompson, Carolina Trujillo, Shoko Wakabayashi, Joshua B Wallach, Christopher Watson, Thomas R Ioerger, Eric S Lander, Brian K Hubbard, Michael H Serrano-Wu, Sabine Ehrt, Michael Fitzgerald, Eric J Rubin, Christopher M Sassetti, Dirk Schnappinger, Deborah T Hung
PMID31217586
ABSTRACT

New antibiotics are needed to combat rising levels of resistance, with new Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) drugs having the highest priority. However, conventional whole-cell and biochemical antibiotic screens have failed. Here we develop a strategy termed PROSPECT (primary screening of strains to prioritize expanded chemistry and targets), in which we screen compounds against pools of strains depleted of essential bacterial targets. We engineered strains that target 474 essential Mtb genes and screened pools of 100-150 strains against activity-enriched and unbiased compound libraries, probing more than 8.5 million chemical-genetic interactions. Primary screens identified over tenfold more hits than screening wild-type Mtb alone, with chemical-genetic interactions providing immediate, direct target insights. We identified over 40 compounds that target DNA gyrase, the cell wall, tryptophan, folate biosynthesis and RNA polymerase, as well as inhibitors that target EfpA. Chemical optimization yielded EfpA inhibitors with potent wild-type activity, thus demonstrating the ability of PROSPECT to yield inhibitors against targets that would have eluded conventional drug discovery.