Antibiotics induce redox-related physiological alterations as part of their lethality.

Deeper understanding of antibiotic-induced physiological responses is critical to identifying means for enhancing our current antibiotic arsenal. Bactericidal antibiotics with diverse targets have been hypothesized to kill bacteria, in part by inducing production of damaging reactive species. This notion has been supported by many groups but has been challenged recently. Here we robustly test the hypothesis using biochemical, enzymatic, and biophysical assays along with genetic and phenotypic experiments. We first used a novel intracellular H2O2 sensor, together with a chemically diverse panel of fluorescent dyes sensitive to an array of reactive species to demonstrate that antibiotics broadly induce redox stress. Subsequent gene-expression analyses reveal that complex antibiotic-induced oxidative stress responses are distinct from canonical responses generated by supraphysiological levels of H2O2. We next developed a method to quantify cellular respiration dynamically and found that bactericidal antibiotics elevate oxygen consumption, indicating significant alterations to bacterial redox physiology. We further show that overexpression of catalase or DNA mismatch repair enzyme, MutS, and antioxidant pretreatment limit antibiotic lethality, indicating that reactive oxygen species causatively contribute to antibiotic killing. Critically, the killing efficacy of antibiotics was diminished under strict anaerobic conditions but could be enhanced by exposure to molecular oxygen or by the addition of alternative electron acceptors, indicating that environmental factors play a role in killing cells physiologically primed for death. This work provides direct evidence that, downstream of their target-specific interactions, bactericidal antibiotics induce complex redox alterations that contribute to cellular damage and death, thus supporting an evolving, expanded model of antibiotic lethality.

A distinctive structural twist in the aminoimidazole alkaloids from a calcareous marine sponge: isolation and characterization of leucosolenamines A and B.

Bioassay-guided fractionation of Papua New Guinea collections of Leucosolenia sp. resulted in the isolation of the novel compounds leucosolenamines A (5) and B (6) and the known compound thymidine (7). Compound 5 contains a 2-aminoimidazole core substituted at C-4 and C-5 by an N,N-dimethyl-5,6-diaminopyrimidine-2,4-dione and a benzyl group, respectively. Compound 6 retains the same core structure; however C-4 is substituted by a 5,6-diamino-1,3-dimethyl-4-(methylimino)-3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1H)-one moiety. This substitution pattern is unique and has never been observed in calcareous imidazole alkaloid chemistry. Leucosolenamine A (5) was mildly cytotoxic against the murine colon adenocarcinoma C-38 cell line.

Pyrroloacridine alkaloids from Plakortis quasiamphiaster: structures and bioactivity.

A re-collection of Plakortis quasiamphiaster from Vanuatu in 2003 resulted in the isolation of three known compounds, plakinidine A (1) and amphiasterins B1 (6) and B2 (7). Also isolated was a new bis-oxygenated pyrroloacridine alkaloid, plakinidine E (8), with a unique O-substitution versus N-substitution at position C-12 in 1. The biological evaluation of the active compounds in two assays provided complementary data. Plakinidine A (1) exhibited cytotoxicity against human colon H-116 cells with an IC50 of 0.23 microg/mL, but there were no effects against the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae diploid homozygous deletion strain of topoisomerase I (top1Delta). By contrast, 8 was inactive against H-116 cells but was potent in the yeast halo screen.

A new structural theme in the imidazole-containing alkaloids from a calcareous Leucetta sponge.

Further study of the Fijian sponge Leucetta sp., a source of (+)-calcaridine A (4) and (-)-spirocalcaridines A (5) and B (6), has yielded (-)-spiroleucettadine (8), the first natural product to contain a fused 2-aminoimidazole oxalane ring along with the known compounds N,N-dimethylnaamidine D (3) and isonaamine B (7). NMR analysis allowed the unambiguous 2D structural assignment of 8, and its relative stereochemistry was determined by ROESY data. Good antibacterial activity was observed for 8 against Enterococcus durans with an MIC of less than 6.25 microg/mL.