Natural products as drugs and tools for influencing core processes of eukaryotic mRNA translation.

Eukaryotic protein synthesis is the highly conserved, complex mechanism of translating genetic information into proteins. Although this process is essential for cellular homoeostasis, dysregulations are associated with cellular malfunctions and diseases including cancer and diabetes. In the challenging and ongoing search for adequate treatment possibilities, natural products represent excellent research tools and drug leads for new interactions with the translational machinery and for influencing mRNA translation. In this review, bacterial-, marine- and plant-derived natural compounds that interact with different steps of mRNA translation, comprising ribosomal assembly, translation initiation and elongation, are highlighted. Thereby, the exact binding and interacting partners are unveiled in order to accurately understand the mode of action of each natural product. The pharmacological relevance of these compounds is furthermore assessed by evaluating the observed biological activities in the light of translational inhibition and by enlightening potential obstacles and undesired side-effects, e.g. in clinical trials. As many of the natural products presented here possess the potential to serve as drug leads for synthetic derivatives, structural motifs, which are indispensable for both mode of action and biological activities, are discussed. Evaluating the natural products emphasises the strong diversity of their points of attack. Especially the fact that selected binding partners can be set in direct relation to different diseases emphasises the indispensability of natural products in the field of drug development. Discovery of new, unique and unusual interacting partners again renders them promising tools for future research in the field of eukaryotic mRNA translation.

Impact of maltogenic α-amylase on the structure of potato starch and its retrogradation properties.

Structural modification of starch using efficient α-amylases to improve its properties is an established method in the starch industry. In our previous research, the novel maltogenic α-amylase CoMA that catalyzes multi-molecular reactions has been identified. In this study, the impact of CoMA on the structure and retrogradation properties of potato starch was evaluated. CoMA cleaves internal starch chains to change the proportion of amylose and amylopectin in starch. Following treatment, visible pores and microporous on the surface of starch granules were observed from SEM analysis. CoMA modification led to increased insoluble blue complex formation and hydrolysis to shorten the outer chains, which was found to reduce the development rate of starch according to network interactions from the dynamic rheological analysis. Furthermore, maltose accumulation with water competition was also deduced to be involved in the inhibition of retrogradation. Its activities in the cleavage of internal starch granules, shortening of outer chains of starch, and maltose formation make CoMA a powerful agent for the inhibition of starch retrogradation with a very low effective dose of 0.5 mg/kg, which may find potential applications in the starch processing industry.

Activation of the NLRP3 Inflammasome by Hyaboron, a New Asymmetric Boron-Containing Macrodiolide from the Myxobacterium Hyalangium minutum.

A Natural Compound Library containing myxobacterial secondary metabolites was screened in murine macrophages for novel activators of IL-1ß maturation and secretion. The most potent of three hits in total was a so far undescribed metabolite, which was identified from the myxobacterium Hyalangium minutum strain Hym3. While the planar structure of 1 was elucidated by high resolution mass spectrometry and NMR data yielding an asymmetric boron containing a macrodiolide core structure, its relative stereochemistry of all 20 stereocenters of the 42-membered ring was assigned by rotating frame Overhause effect spectroscopy correlations, 1H,1H, and 1H,13C coupling constants, and by comparison of 13C chemical shifts to those of the structurally related metabolites tartrolon B-D. The absolute stereochemistry was subsequently assigned by Mosher's and Marfey's methods. Further functional studies revealed that hyaboron and other boronated natural compounds resulted in NLRP3 inflammasome dependent IL-1ß maturation, which is most likely due to their ability to act as potassium ionophores. Moreover, besides its inflammasome-stimulatory activity in human and mouse cells, hyaboron (1) showed additional diverse biological activities, including antibacterial and antiparasitic effects.

Correlating chemical diversity with taxonomic distance for discovery of natural products in myxobacteria.

Some bacterial clades are important sources of novel bioactive natural products. Estimating the magnitude of chemical diversity available from such a resource is complicated by issues including cultivability, isolation bias and limited analytical data sets. Here we perform a systematic metabolite survey of ~2300 bacterial strains of the order Myxococcales, a well-established source of natural products, using mass spectrometry. Our analysis encompasses both known and previously unidentified metabolites detected under laboratory cultivation conditions, thereby enabling large-scale comparison of production profiles in relation to myxobacterial taxonomy. We find a correlation between taxonomic distance and the production of distinct secondary metabolite families, further supporting the idea that the chances of discovering novel metabolites are greater by examining strains from new genera rather than additional representatives within the same genus. In addition, we report the discovery and structure elucidation of rowithocin, a myxobacterial secondary metabolite featuring an uncommon phosphorylated polyketide scaffold.

Discovery and biological activity of new chondramides from Chondromyces sp.

Myxobacteria have proven to be highly valuable sources of natural products, as they produce a variety of secondary metabolites with unique structures and often new modes of action. In this study, high-content screening is demonstrated to be a convenient tool for bioactivity-guided isolation of natural products from crude bacterial extracts. By the application of focused, image-based screens we were able to identify over 30 novel chondramide derivatives from Chondromyces sp. MSr9030, some of which were present in only minute amounts. These cyclic depsipeptides were shown to target actin filaments with a similar binding mode to that of the mushroom toxin phalloidin. Fermentations of the myxobacterial strain were carried out under improved cultivation conditions, and supplementation of the culture broth with potassium bromide afforded the production of brominated analogues that are superior (in terms of biological activity) to all chondramides described to date. Initial biological profiling of 11 new derivatives in comparison to the reference compounds (chondramides A-C) showed that bromo-chondramide C3 and propionyl-bromo-chondramide C3 are the most active in cell-based studies, with GI50 values on human cancer cell lines in the low nanomolar range. Given that these brominated C3 analogues were also less potent on noncancerous human cells (by a factor of 2 to 4 in comparison to cancer cell lines), our results can aid further structure-activity relationship-guided development of chondramides, either as molecular probes or pharmaceutical agents.

Inhibition of bone resorption in cultures of mouse calvariae by apicularen A.

Apicularens A and B were isolated from the myxobacterial genus Chondromyces apiculatus JW184. Apicularen A inhibited bafilomycin A1-sensitive ATP-dependent proton transport into microsome vesicles more potently than apicularen B. Bone resorption in cultures of mouse calvariae induced by human parathyroid hormone (PTH) or interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) was inhibited by apicularen A at 10 and 100 nM, while apicularen B had no effect. The bisphosphonate incadronate inhibited bone resorption at 100 nM, being less effective than apicularen A. Our findings indicate that apicularen A inhibits bone resorption induced by PTH or IL-1beta more potently than apicularen B, probably due to inhibition of the V-ATPase.

Melithiazols, new beta-methoxyacrylate inhibitors of the respiratory chain isolated from myxobacteria. Production, isolation, physico-chemical and biological properties.

New antibiotic compounds, melithiazols, were isolated from the culture broth of strains of the myxobacteria Melittangium lichenicola, Archangium gephyra, and Myxococcus stipitatus. The compounds belong to the group of beta-methoxyacrylate (MOA) inhibitors and are related to the myxothiazols. The melithiazols show high antifungal activity, but are less toxic than myxothiazol A and its methyl ester in a growth inhibition assay with mouse cell cultures. The melithiazols inhibit NADH oxidation by submitochondrial particles from beef heart. Melithiazol A blocks the electron transport within the bc1-segment (complex III) and causes a red shift in the reduced spectrum of cytochrome b.