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Kamal M, Mukherjee S, Joshi B, Sindhu ZUD, Wangchuk P, Haider S, Ahmed N, Talukder MH, Geary TG, Yadav AK. Model nematodes as a practical innovation to promote high throughput screening of natural products for anthelmintics discovery in South Asia: Current challenges, proposed practical and conceptual solutions. Mol Biochem Parasitol 2023; 256:111594. [PMID: 37730126 DOI: 10.1016/j.molbiopara.2023.111594] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2023] [Revised: 08/27/2023] [Accepted: 09/12/2023] [Indexed: 09/22/2023]
Abstract
With the increasing prevalence of anthelmintic resistance in animals recorded globally, and the threat of resistance in human helminths, the need for novel anthelmintic drugs is greater than ever. Most research aimed at discovering novel anthelmintic leads relies on high throughput screening (HTS) of large libraries of synthetic small molecules in industrial and academic settings in developed countries, even though it is the tropical countries that are most plagued by helminth infections. Tropical countries, however, have the advantage of possessing a rich flora that may yield natural products (NP) with promising anthelmintic activity. Focusing on South Asia, which produces one of the world's highest research outputs in NP and NP-based anthelmintic discovery, we find that limited basic research and funding, a lack of awareness of the utility of model organisms, poor industry-academia partnerships and lack of technological innovations greatly limit anthelmintics research in the region. Here we propose that utilizing model organisms including the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, that can potentially allow rapid target identification of novel anthelmintics, and Oscheius tipulae, a closely related, free-living nematode which is found abundantly in soil in hotter temperatures, could be a much-needed innovation that can enable cost-effective and efficient HTS of NPs for discovering compounds with anthelmintic/antiparasitic potential in South Asia and other tropical regions that historically have devoted limited funding for such research. Additionally, increased collaborations at the national, regional and international level between parasitologists and pharmacologists/ethnobotanists, setting up government-industry-academia partnerships to fund academic research, creating a centralized, regional collection of plant extracts or purified NPs as a dereplication strategy and HTS library, and holding regional C. elegans/O. tipulae-based anthelmintics workshops and conferences to share knowledge and resources regarding model organisms may collectively promote and foster a NP-based anthelmintics landscape in South Asia and beyond.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muntasir Kamal
- Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
| | - Suprabhat Mukherjee
- Department of Animal Science, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol 713340, West Bengal, India
| | - Bishnu Joshi
- Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Zia-Ud-Din Sindhu
- Department of Parasitology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan
| | - Phurpa Wangchuk
- Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University, Cairns Campus, QLD 4878, Australia
| | | | - Nurnabi Ahmed
- Department of Parasitology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh
| | | | - Timothy G Geary
- Institute of Parasitology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University-Belfast, Belfast, NI, UK
| | - Arun K Yadav
- Department of Zoology, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong 793022, India
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Padalino G, Coghlan A, Pagliuca G, Forde-Thomas JE, Berriman M, Hoffmann KF. Using ChEMBL to Complement Schistosome Drug Discovery. Pharmaceutics 2023; 15:1359. [PMID: 37242601 PMCID: PMC10220823 DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15051359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2023] [Revised: 04/25/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2023] [Indexed: 05/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Schistosomiasis is one of the most important neglected tropical diseases. Until an effective vaccine is registered for use, the cornerstone of schistosomiasis control remains chemotherapy with praziquantel. The sustainability of this strategy is at substantial risk due to the possibility of praziquantel insensitive/resistant schistosomes developing. Considerable time and effort could be saved in the schistosome drug discovery pipeline if available functional genomics, bioinformatics, cheminformatics and phenotypic resources are systematically leveraged. Our approach, described here, outlines how schistosome-specific resources/methodologies, coupled to the open-access drug discovery database ChEMBL, can be cooperatively used to accelerate early-stage, schistosome drug discovery efforts. Our process identified seven compounds (fimepinostat, trichostatin A, NVP-BEP800, luminespib, epoxomicin, CGP60474 and staurosporine) with ex vivo anti-schistosomula potencies in the sub-micromolar range. Three of those compounds (epoxomicin, CGP60474 and staurosporine) also demonstrated potent and fast-acting ex vivo effects on adult schistosomes and completely inhibited egg production. ChEMBL toxicity data were also leveraged to provide further support for progressing CGP60474 (as well as luminespib and TAE684) as a novel anti-schistosomal compound. As very few compounds are currently at the advanced stages of the anti-schistosomal pipeline, our approaches highlight a strategy by which new chemical matter can be identified and quickly progressed through preclinical development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gilda Padalino
- School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NB, UK
| | - Avril Coghlan
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge CB10 1SA, UK;
| | | | | | - Matthew Berriman
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, School of Infection and Immunity, University of Glasgow, 120 University Place, Glasgow G12 8TA, UK;
| | - Karl F. Hoffmann
- The Department of Life Sciences (DLS), Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DA, UK;
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Dranchak PK, Oliphant E, Queme B, Lamy L, Wang Y, Huang R, Xia M, Tao D, Inglese J. In vivo quantitative high-throughput screening for drug discovery and comparative toxicology. Dis Model Mech 2023; 16:dmm049863. [PMID: 36786055 PMCID: PMC10067442 DOI: 10.1242/dmm.049863] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2022] [Accepted: 02/01/2023] [Indexed: 02/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Quantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS) pharmacologically evaluates chemical libraries for therapeutic uses, toxicological risk and, increasingly, for academic probe discovery. Phenotypic high-throughput screening assays interrogate molecular pathways, often relying on cell culture systems, historically less focused on multicellular organisms. Caenorhabditis elegans has served as a eukaryotic model organism for human biology by virtue of genetic conservation and experimental tractability. Here, a paradigm enabling C. elegans qHTS using 384-well microtiter plate laser-scanning cytometry is described, in which GFP-expressing organisms revealing phenotype-modifying structure-activity relationships guide subsequent life-stage and proteomic analyses, and Escherichia coli bacterial ghosts, a non-replicating nutrient source, allow compound exposures over two life cycles, mitigating bacterial overgrowth complications. We demonstrate the method with libraries of anti-infective agents, or substances of toxicological concern. Each was tested in seven-point titration to assess the feasibility of nematode-based in vivo qHTS, and examples of follow-up strategies were provided to study organism-based chemotype selectivity and subsequent network perturbations with a physiological impact. We anticipate that this qHTS approach will enable analysis of C. elegans orthologous phenotypes of human pathologies to facilitate drug library profiling for a range of therapeutic indications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia K. Dranchak
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Erin Oliphant
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Bryan Queme
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Laurence Lamy
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Yuhong Wang
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Ruili Huang
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Menghang Xia
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - Dingyin Tao
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
| | - James Inglese
- Department of Preclinical Innovation, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD 20850, USA
- Metabolic Medicine Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20817, USA
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Coghlan A, Padalino G, O'Boyle NM, Hoffmann KF, Berriman M. Identification of anti-schistosomal, anthelmintic and anti-parasitic compounds curated and text-mined from the scientific literature. Wellcome Open Res 2022; 7:193. [PMID: 36003342 PMCID: PMC9363976 DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17987.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
More than a billion people are infected with parasitic worms, including nematodes, such as hookworms, and flatworms, such as blood flukes. Few drugs are available to treat worm infections, but high-throughput screening approaches hold promise to identify novel drug candidates. One problem for researchers who find an interesting ‘hit’ from a high-throughput screen is to identify whether that compound, or a similar compound has previously been published as having anthelmintic or anti-parasitic activity. Here, we present (i) data sets of 2,828 anthelmintic compounds, and 1,269 specific anti-schistosomal compounds, manually curated from scientific papers and books, and (ii) a data set of 24,335 potential anthelmintic and anti-parasitic compounds identified by text-mining PubMed abstracts. We provide their structures in simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES) format so that researchers can easily compare ‘hits’ from their screens to these anthelmintic compounds and anti-parasitic compounds and find previous literature on them to support/halt their progression in drug discovery pipelines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Avril Coghlan
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
| | - Gilda Padalino
- The Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales, SY23 3DA, UK
- School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Cardiff University, Redwood Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3NB, UK
| | - Noel M. O'Boyle
- NextMove Software Ltd., Cambridge Science Park, Milton Rd., Cambridge, CB4 0WG, UK
- Sosei Heptares, Steinmetz Building, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge, CB21 6DG, UK
| | - Karl F. Hoffmann
- The Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales, SY23 3DA, UK
| | - Matthew Berriman
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Parasitology, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, University of Glasgow, 120 University Place, Glasgow, G12 8TA, UK
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