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Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, April 2006, p. 1458-1462, Vol. 50, No. 4
0066-4804/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/AAC.50.4.1458-1462.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Institute of Molecular Biology and Physiology, University of Copenhagen, Sølvgade 83 H, DK-1307 Copenhagen K, Denmark,1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark2
Received 13 September 2005/ Returned for modification 2 November 2005/ Accepted 13 January 2006
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In this work, chemical footprinting was used to investigate the binding of four pleuromutilin derivatives at the peptidyl transferase center. In addition, the susceptibility of an E. coli L3 mutant strain to these pleuromutilin derivatives was examined, as well as their binding to L3 mutant ribosomes. We conclude that the thioether and acyl carbamate side chain extensions of pleuromutilin derivatives can adopt distinct conformations within the peptidyl transferase cavity and that additional interactions between the side chain extension of valnemulin and the cavity are responsible for the lack of valnemulin cross-resistance in an L3 mutant strain.
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Footprinting experiments. Ribosome isolation, chemical modification with dimethyl sulfate (DMS) and 1-cyclohexyl-3-(2-morpholinoethyl)carbodiimide metho-p-toluene sulfonate (CMCT), and primer extension procedures were carried out essentially as described previously (12). Kethoxal modifications were performed by incubating 5 pmol of the antibiotic-70S complexes for 30 min at 37°C in 50 µl modification buffer (70 mM HEPES-KOH, pH 7.8, 10 mM MgCl2, 270 mM KCl), followed by modification with 5 µl kethoxal (40 mg/ml in 20% ethanol) for 20 min at 37°C. The reactions were stopped by adding 5 µl SB buffer (0.3 M sodium acetate, 0.25 M H3BO3), followed by precipitation with ethanol. The washed pellet was redissolved in 100 µl SB buffer, extracted with phenol, (1:1) phenol-chloroform, and chloroform, followed by precipitation with 3 volumes of ethanol. The pellet was then dissolved in 7 µl TEB buffer (10 mM Tris-Cl, pH 7.8, 0.1 mM EDTA, 50 mM potassium borate) and used in primer extension reactions.
The following DNA oligonucleotide primers were used in the extension reactions: 5'-TCCGGTCCTCTCGTACT-3', complementary to nucleotides 2654 to 2670 of 23S rRNA; 5'-CCATGCAGACTGGCGTC-3', complementary to nucleotides 2141 to 2157 of 23S rRNA; and 5'-GAACAGCCATACCCTTG-3', complementary to nucleotides 2540 to 2556 of 23S rRNA. The cDNA products of the primer extension reactions were separated on 6 or 8% polyacrylamide-7 M urea sequencing gels. The intensities of the modification bands were quantified using a phosphorimager.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing. For MIC determination, overnight liquid cultures were diluted and 102 to 103 cells were spread onto antibiotic-containing NZY agar plates. MICs are the results of at least two to three independent experiments and are expressed as ranges, where the lower value represents the highest antibiotic concentration at which there are easily visible single colonies after 24 h and the higher value represents the lowest tested concentration where there are no easily visible colonies after 24 h. The highest antibiotic concentration tested was 400 µg/ml.
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FIG. 1. Chemical structures of the pleuromutilin derivatives used in this study.
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FIG. 2. (A to C) Gel autoradiograms showing the antibiotic footprints on MRE600 ribosomes modified with (A) kethoxal, (B) DMS, and (C) CMCT. (D) Comparison of CMCT footprints on CN2476 (wild-type) and JB5 (L3 mutant) ribosomes. Nucleotides exhibiting altered reactivities in the presence of the pleuromutilin derivatives are indicated. Dideoxy sequencing lanes are designated G, A, U, and C. Lanes are labeled to indicate reactions with chemically unmodified 70S ribosomes in the absence of drugs (control) and 70S ribosomes modified in the absence of drugs (kethoxal, DMS, and CMCT). Ribosomes modified in the presence of tiamulin (Tia), valnemulin (Val), SB-264128 (SB), or pleuromutilin (Ple) are marked, where wedges are used to indicate a low (2 µM) or high (20 µM) drug concentration.
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TABLE 1. Summary of chemical footprinting data with pleuromutilin derivativesa
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FIG. 3. Ribosomal binding site of the pleuromutilin antibiotics. (A) Secondary structure of domain V of E. coli 23S rRNA, showing the chemical footprints of the four pleuromutilin antibiotics in color (A2058 and A2059 in green, G2505 and U2506 in red, and U2584 and U2585 in yellow). The nucleotide positions exhibiting altered reactivities in the presence of each drug (T, tiamulin; V, valnemulin; P, pleuromutilin; and S, SB-264128) are indicated. Protection effects are shown as filled arrowheads and enhancement effects as open arrowheads. (B) The structure of the 50S subunit from Deinococcus radiodurans complexed with tiamulin (15) (PDB accession no. 1XBP), where tiamulin is represented as a blue sphere and ribosomal protein L3 as a purple ribbon. RNA is represented as gray spheres, and proteins are shown as light blue ribbons. The subunit is rendered transparently to show the internal positions of tiamulin and L3, which are projected onto the shadow below. (C) An expanded view of the tiamulin binding site. Tiamulin is shown in stick representation, where the mutilin core is in dark blue and the side chain extension is in cyan. The nucleotides in the footprints and L3 are colored as described for panels A and B. Other nucleotides involved in hydrophobic interactions with tiamulin (15) are shown in gray. (D) As in panel C, but rotated 60 degrees around the y axis.
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E. coli L3 mutant strain susceptibility to pleuromutilins and drug binding to L3 mutant ribosomes. A previous investigation showed that a point mutation resulting in an Asn-to-Asp alteration at position 149 of ribosomal protein L3 causes reduced susceptibility to tiamulin in E. coli (2). In order to test whether this phenotype applies to other pleuromutilin derivatives, the susceptibilities of the parent strain to the four pleuromutilins were determined and compared with those of the L3 mutant strain. The results are summarized as MIC ranges in Table 2. The L3 mutant strain has a decreased susceptibility to tiamulin, pleuromutilin, and SB-264128 relative to the parent strain. In contrast, no difference in susceptibility to valnemulin is observed between the parent and L3 mutant strains. Thus, the L3 mutation does not confer cross-resistance to valnemulin. This is important, as mutations at corresponding positions of ribosomal protein L3 occur in both laboratory-selected Brachyspira mutants and B. hyodysenteriae field isolates with decreased susceptibility to tiamulin (13). As the mutated position is approximately 10 to 12 Å from the drug binding pocket, the mutation apparently functions indirectly through perturbation of the drug binding cavity. The mutation presumably induces an altered conformation of the binding cavity, perturbing the drug-rRNA interactions at the mutilin core. For tiamulin, pleuromutilin, and SB-264128, this leads to decreased susceptibility of the L3 mutant strain and reduced binding to L3 mutant ribosomes. The lack of valnemulin cross-resistance in the L3 mutant strain suggests that valnemulin makes additional interactions with the binding cavity through its side chain extension and remains bound despite an altered binding surface around the mutilin core. The footprinting technique is limited to obtaining information on the subset of nucleotide bases that are accessible to chemical probes and the portions of these bases involved in the modification reactions. Therefore, additional interactions may be present without necessarily being detectable via chemical footprinting.
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TABLE 2. Susceptibilities of E. coli parent and L3 mutant strains to pleuromutilins
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Correlations to the pleuromutilin binding site at the peptidyl transferase center. It is possible to directly relate the positions of nucleotides in the footprints to the bound drug by using the X-ray structure of the Deinococcus radiodurans 50S subunit bound to tiamulin (15) (Fig. 3B). The positions of the nucleotides affected in the pleuromutilin footprints relative to bound tiamulin are illustrated in Fig. 3C and D. The tricyclic core of tiamulin is positioned in a cavity defined in part by nucleotides G2505 and U2506 (15). The protections at G2505 and U2506 can be rationalized in that these nucleotides are within 3 to 4 Å from the mutilin core and close enough to contact the drugs directly through hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions. The protection effects at U2584 and U2585 can be assigned to the side chain extensions off of the mutilin core. The strength of the U2585 protection is correlated with the side chain length and increases from pleuromutilin to tiamulin to valnemulin. This is consistent with the fact that the distance from U2585 to the tiamulin side chain extension is about 4 Å. The data further suggest that the side chain extension of SB-264128 induces a change in rRNA conformation within the cavity, where U2584 and U2585 are more accessible to modification by CMCT than without drug bound. Nucleotides A2058 and A2059 are located in the peptide exit tunnel and are 7 to 8 Å from the bound mutilin core, suggesting that the footprints here are indirect effects induced by drug binding. Similar enhancement effects at these positions have also been observed with streptogramin A drugs (11, 14), whose binding site at the peptidyl transferase center overlaps extensively with that of tiamulin (5, 15).
Concluding remarks. The pleuromutilin antibiotics examined in this work all affect the reactivities of nucleotides A2058, A2059, G2505, and U2506, reflecting the binding of the common tricyclic mutilin core of pleuromutilins to the peptidyl transferase center. However, the side chain extensions of the derivatives adopt different conformations within the cavity as evidenced by the diverse effects observed at positions U2584 and U2585, including both protections and enhancements. The susceptibility of the L3 mutant to pleuromutilins suggests that resistance caused by mutation of ribosomal protein L3 can be overcome by increasing the number of side chain interactions with the binding cavity. There is thus a potential for drug improvement by lengthening and derivitization of the pleuromutilin side chain according to the information on tiamulin binding to ribosomes derived from X-ray crystallography.
B.V. was supported by the Nucleic Acid Center funded by the Danish National Research Council. K.S.L. was supported by a grant from the European Commission's 5th Framework Program (grant QLK2-CT-2002-00892).
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