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Microbial resistance: novel screens for a contemporary problem

Historically, natural products have been the source of a large variety of antibacterial agents. In the 1980s, no additional useful antibacterial agents were discovered, leading to the belief that most useful chemotypes from natural product sources had already been discovered. At this time, advances in biotechnology made it feasible to produce sufficient enzyme to set up cell-free screens. Chemical compound libraries and combinatorial synthesis became the source of chemical diversity for the screens. In spite of these efforts, very few new antibacterial agents have been discovered in the last decade. At Small Molecule Therapeutics, Inc., we have developed phenotype-based screens that take advantage of the natural physiology and biochemistry of the target enzymes. We have developed a screen to identify bacterial DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV poisons. The "hits" identified in this screen are being characterized further. A second screen has also been developed against bacterial topoisomerase 1 in which compounds that cause DNA damage through their interaction with bacterial topoisomerase 1 have been identified. Three of the compounds identified in the screen inhibit DNA relaxation mediated by bacterial topoisomerase 1, induce DNA cleavage, are noncytotoxic at >10 microM, and have MICs of 4.0 microg/mL against Staphylococcus aureus.