Pentamidine sensitizes FDA-approved non-antibiotics for the inhibition of multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens.

Pentamidine sensitizes FDA-approved antibiotics to combat Gram-negative pathogens. We screened 1374 FDA-approved non-antibiotics for their ability to be sensitized by pentamidine against Escherichia coli. We identified mitomycin C and mefloquine as potent hits effective against multiple drug-resistant, Gram-negative bacteria. Killing kinetics and an in vivo model with Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) revealed that such combinations produced synergy against colistin-resistant Enterobacter cloacae (E. cloacae). These findings suggest combinations of FDA-approved non-antibiotics, and pentamidine can be repurposed into new antimicrobial agents.

Deletion of the ß-Propeller Protein Gene Rv1057 Reduces ESAT-6 Secretion and Intracellular Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Rv1057 is the only ß-propeller protein in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, but its biological function is still unclear. In this study, we generated a deletion mutant of Rv1057 (D1057) in the virulent M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv and examined the characteristics of the mutant in vitro and in macrophages. We found that deletion of Rv1057 reduces secretion of the major virulence factor ESAT-6 and ESAT-6 stops in the cell envelope fraction during secretion, although ESAT-6 levels were similar in lysates of the mutant and control strains. In infected macrophages, Rv1057 deletion significantly reduced the secretion levels of cytokines IL-1ß, IL-10, TNF-α, and INF-γ, but did not affect IL-4 and IL-8. D1057-infected macrophages also release less LDH and produce more nitric oxide (NO) than H37Rv- and D1057com (Rv1057 complemented strain of D1057com)-infected macrophages, indicating that D1057 has the decreased cytotoxicity compared to H37Rv or D1057com. In addition, the capacity of the Rv1057 deletion mutant to grow in macrophages was significantly lower than that of H37Rv and D1057com. Our findings support a role for Rv1057 in ESAT-6 secretion and in modulating the interactions between M. tuberculosis and macrophages.

Gene Overexpression in Streptomyces hygroscopicus Associated with DNA Amplification.

The genetics of the Streptomyces hygroscopicus strain 10-22 is of interest due to the ability of this strain to produce antifungal compounds. Strain T110 was obtained through insertional mutagenesis of strain 10-22 and was found to have undergone DNA amplification, as determined by both conventional and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). pIJ702, the vector used for insertional mutagenesis, was shown to have integrated into and co-amplified with the chromosomal DNA sequence of T110, as pIJ702 hybridized predominantly with two of the three amplified BamHI fragments. The amplified DNA sequence in T110 is 10.8 kb in length and consists of 5.18 kb of Streptomyces chromosomal DNA and the entire 5.62 kb pIJ702 sequence. Sequence analysis of the 5.18 kb chromosomal sequence revealed two open reading frames, one encoding a putative IS5 family transposase and the other encoding a putative dihydroxy-acid dehydratase. Real-time PCR analysis showed that expression of the putative dehydratase gene in T110 is about 50 times greater than in the wild-type strain, consistent with the high level of amplification of this DNA region, and therefore this system has the potential for producing economically or clinically important molecules.

Serial crystallographic analysis of protein isomorphous replacement data from a mixture of native and derivative microcrystals.

A post-experimental identification/purification procedure similar to that described in Zhang et al. [(2015), IUCrJ, 2, 322-326] has been proposed for use in the treatment of multiphase protein serial crystallography (SX) diffraction snapshots. As a proof of concept, the procedure was tested using theoretical serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) data from a mixture containing native and derivatized crystals of a protein. Two known proteins were taken as examples. Multiphase diffraction snapshots were subjected to two rounds of indexing using the program CrystFEL [White et al. (2012). J. Appl. Cryst. 45, 335-341]. In the first round, an ab initio indexing was performed to derive a set of approximate primitive unit-cell parameters, which are roughly the average of those from the native protein and the derivative. These parameters were then used in a second round of indexing as input to CrystFEL. The results were then used to separate the diffraction snapshots into two subsets corresponding to the native and the derivative. For each test sample, integration of the two subsets of snapshots separately led to two sets of three-dimensional diffraction intensities, one belonging to the native and the other to the derivative. Based on these two sets of intensities, a conventional single isomorphous replacement (SIR) procedure solved the structure easily.

A case study on the treatment of protein SIRAS data.

A case study has been made on the treatment of the SIRAS (single isomorphous replacement with anomalous scattering) data of the originally unknown protein LegC3N. An alternative treatment has been proposed which led to improved results in this particular test case. The treatment involves iterative direct-method SAD (single-wavelength anomalous diffraction) phasing and direct-method-aided model completion, both of which are implanted in the IPCAS (Iterative Protein Crystal-structure Automatic Solution) pipeline. Apart from the experimental data, a simulated SIRAS data set for LegC3N with the derivative data truncated to 5.0 Šresolution has also been tested. SAD phasing and phase/model extension in PHENIX without direct methods failed to solve the structure using these simulated SIRAS data. However, the procedure proposed here involving direct methods in both SAD phasing and phase/model extension led to a nearly complete structure model. This shows the potential ability of treating SIRAS data with a derivative diffracting to lower resolution.

An overview of control strategy and diagnostic technology for foot-and-mouth disease in China.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is one of most contagious animal diseases. It affects millions of cloven-hoofed animals and causes huge economic losses in many countries of the world. There are seven serotypes of which three (O, A and Asia 1) are endemic in China. Efficient control of FMD in China is crucial for the prevention and control of FMD in Asia and throughout the world. For the control of FMD, a powerful veterinary administration, a well-trained veterinary staff, a system of rapid and accurate diagnostic procedures and, in many countries, compulsory vaccination of susceptible animals are indispensable. This article strives to outline the Chinese animal disease control and prevention system, in particular for FMD, with the emphasis on diagnostic procedures applied in Chinese laboratories. In addition, new technologies for FMD diagnosis, which are currently in the phase of development or in the process of validation in Chinese laboratories, are described, such as lateral flow devices (LFD), Mab-based ELISAs, reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) and gold nanopariticle immuno-PCR (GNP-IPCR).

A polymeric approach toward resistance-resistant antimicrobial agent with dual-selective mechanisms of action.

Antibiotic resistance is now a major threat to human health, and one approach to combating this threat is to develop resistance-resistant antibiotics. Synthetic antimicrobial polymers are generally resistance resistant, having good activity with low resistance rates but usually with low therapeutic indices. Here, we report our solution to this problem by introducing dual-selective mechanisms of action to a short amidine-rich polymer, which can simultaneously disrupt bacterial membranes and bind to bacterial DNA. The oligoamidine shows unobservable resistance generation but high therapeutic indices against many bacterial types, such as ESKAPE strains and clinical isolates resistant to multiple drugs, including colistin. The oligomer exhibited excellent effectiveness in various model systems, killing extracellular or intracellular bacteria in the presence of mammalian cells, removing all bacteria from Caenorhabditis elegans, and rescuing mice with severe infections. This "dual mechanisms of action" approach may be a general strategy for future development of antimicrobial polymers.

Direct-method SAD phasing of proteins enhanced by the use of intrinsic bimodal phase distributions in the subsequent phase-improvement process.

A modified SAD (single-wavelength anomalous diffraction) phasing algorithm has been introduced in the latest version of the program OASIS. In addition to direct-method phases and figures of merit, Hendrickson-Lattman coefficients that correspond to the original unresolved bimodal phase distributions are also output and used in subsequent phase-improvement procedures in combination with the improved phases. This provides the possibility of rebreaking the SAD phase ambiguity using the ever-improving phases resulting from the phase-improvement process. Tests using experimental SAD data from six known proteins showed that in all cases the new treatment produced significant improved results.

Effect of impurities and post-experimental purification in SAD phasing with serial femtosecond crystallography data.

In serial crystallography (SX) with either an X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) or synchrotron radiation as the light source, huge numbers of micrometre-sized crystals are used in diffraction data collection. For a SAD experiment using a derivative with introduced heavy atoms, it is difficult to completely exclude crystals of the native protein from the sample. In this paper, simulations were performed to study how the inclusion of native crystals in the derivative sample could affect the result of SAD phasing and how the post-experimental purification proposed by Zhang et al. [(2015), Acta Cryst. D71, 2513-2518] could be used to remove the impurities. A gadolinium derivative of lysozyme and the corresponding native protein were used in the test. Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) diffraction snapshots were generated by CrystFEL. SHELXC/D, Phaser, DM, ARP/wARP and REFMAC were used for automatic structure solution. It is shown that a small amount of impurities (snapshots from native crystals) in the set of derivative snapshots can strongly affect the SAD phasing results. On the other hand, post-experimental purification can efficiently remove the impurities, leading to results similar to those from a pure sample.

SFX analysis of non-biological polycrystalline samples.

Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) is capable of collecting three-dimensional single-crystal diffraction data using polycrystalline samples. This may dramatically enhance the power of X-ray powder diffraction. In this paper a test has been performed using simulated diffraction patterns. The test sample is a mixture of two zeolites with crystal grain sizes from 100 to 300 nm. X-ray diffraction snapshots by SFX were simulated and processed using the program suite CrystFEL. Identification according to the primitive unit-cell volume determined from individual snapshots was able to separate the whole set of snapshots into two subsets, which correspond to the two zeolites in the sample. Monte Carlo integration in CrystFEL was then applied to them separately. This led to two sets of three-dimensional single-crystal diffraction intensities, based on which crystal structures of the two zeolites were solved easily by direct methods implemented in the program SHELXD.

Applications of direct methods in protein crystallography for dealing with diffraction data down to 5 Å resolution.

Apart from solving the heavy-atom substructure in proteins and ab initio phasing of protein diffraction data at atomic resolution, direct methods have also been successfully combined with other protein crystallographic methods in dealing with diffraction data far below atomic resolution, leading to significantly improved results. In this respect, direct methods provide phase constraints in reciprocal space within a dual-space iterative framework rather than solve the phase problem independently. Applications of this type of direct methods to difficult SAD phasing, model completion and low-resolution phase extension will be described in detail.

OASIS and molecular-replacement model completion.

A method of dual-space molecular-replacement model completion has been proposed which involves the programs ARP/wARP, REFMAC, OASIS and DM. OASIS is used in reciprocal space for phase refinement based on models built by ARP/wARP. For this purpose, the direct-method probability formula of breaking SAD/SIR phase ambiguities has been redefined. During the phase refinement, phi(h)('') in the expression phi(h) = phi(h)('') +/- |Delta phi(h)| is redefined as a reference phase calculated from a randomly selected 5% of the atoms in the current structure model, while |Delta phi(h)| is defined as the absolute difference between the phase of the current model and phi(h)(''). The probability formula P(+)(Delta phi(h)) = (1/2) + (1/2) tanh {sin |Delta phi(h)| x [Sigma (h('))m(h('))m(h - h('))kappa(h,h(')) sin(Phi'(3) + Delta phi(h'best) + Delta phi(h - h'best)) + chi sin delta(h)]} is then used to derive the sign of Delta phi(h). In this way the '0-2pi' phase problem is reduced to a 'plus or minus' sign problem. The redefinition implies that during the refinement phases close to the true values will probably be kept unchanged, while those distant from the true values will probably undergo a large shift. This is the desired property of phase refinement. The procedure has been tested using protein diffraction data without SAD/SIR signals. The results show that dual-space MR-model completion making use of OASIS is much more efficient than that without.

SAD phasing by OASIS-2004: case studies of dual-space fragment extension.

The principle of dual-space phasing is used in dealing with protein SAD data. Four programs are involved in iterative dual-space fragment extension to improve automatic model building. OASIS-2004 is used to break the phase ambiguity intrinsic in the SAD experiment. In the initial cycle, discrimination of SAD phase doublets is performed by the direct method incorporating the known anomalous-scattering substructure. In subsequent cycles, discrimination is performed by the direct method incorporating both the known anomalous-scattering substructure and the partial protein structure obtained from model building in the preceding cycle. DM is used to improve direct-method phases via density modification. RESOLVE is used for initial model building and ARP/wARP is used to complete the structure. Case studies with three sets of difficult SAD data showed that the procedure is beneficial to high-throughput protein-structure determination and all of the four programs involved make their unique contribution to the process.