Mitochondrial respirasome works as a single unit and the cross-talk between complexes I, III2 and IV stimulates NADH dehydrogenase activity.

Ustilago maydis is an aerobic basidiomycete that depends on oxidative phosphorylation for its ATP supply, pointing to the mitochondrion as a key player in its energy metabolism. Mitochondrial respiratory complexes I, III2, and IV occur in supramolecular structures named respirasome. In this work, we characterized the subunit composition and the kinetics of NADH:Q oxidoreductase activity of the digitonine-solubilized respirasome (1600 kDa) and the free-complex I (990 kDa). In the presence of 2,6-dimethoxy-1,4-benzoquinone (DBQ) and cytochrome c, both the respirasome NADH:O2 and the NADH:DBQ oxidoreductase activities were inhibited by rotenone, antimycin A or cyanide. A value of 2.4 for the NADH oxidized/oxygen reduced ratio was determined for the respirasome activity, while ROS production was less than 0.001% of the oxygen consumption rate. Analysis of the NADH:DBQ oxidoreductase activity showed that respirasome was 3-times more active and showed higher affinity than free-complex I. The results suggest that the contacts between complexes I, III2 and IV in the respirasome increase the catalytic efficiency of complex I and regulate its activity to prevent ROS production.

Targeting Plasmodium Metabolism to Improve Antimalarial Drug Design.

Malaria is one of the main infectious diseases in tropical developing countries and represents high morbidity and mortality rates nowadays. The principal etiological agent P. falciparum is transmitted through the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito. The issue has escalated due to the emergence of resistant strains to most of the antimalarials used for the treatment including Chloroquine, Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine, and recently Artemisinin derivatives, which has led to diminished effectiveness and by consequence increased the severity of epidemic outbreaks. Due to the lack of effective compounds to treat these drug-resistant strains, the discovery or development of novel anti-malaria drugs is important. In this context, one strategy has been to find inhibitors of enzymes, which play an important role for parasite survival. Today, promising results have been obtained in this regard, involving the entire P. falciparum metabolism. These inhibitors could serve as leads in the search of a new chemotherapy against malaria. This review focuses on the achievements in recent years with regard to inhibition of enzymes used as targets for drug design against malaria.