Structural signatures of antibiotic binding sites on the ribosome

Pyrosequencing analysis for rapid and accurate detection of clarithromycin resistance-associated mutations in Iranian Helicobacter pylori isolates

BACKGROUND

Treatment of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection has become challenging following the development of primary antibiotic resistance. A primary therapeutic regimen for H. pylori eradication includes clarithromycin; however, the presence of point mutations within the 23S rRNA sequence of H. pylori contributes to clarithromycin resistance and eradication failure. Thus, we aimed to develop a rapid and precise method to determine clarithromycin resistance-related point mutations using the pyrosequencing method.

METHODS AND RESULTS

H. pylori was isolated from 82 gastric biopsy samples and minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) was evaluated using the agar dilution method. Clarithromycin resistance-associated point mutations were detected by Sanger sequencing, from which 11 isolates were chosen for pyrosequencing. Our results demonstrated a 43.9% (36/82) prevalence in resistance to clarithromycin. The A2143G mutation was detected in 8.3% (4/48) of H. pylori isolates followed by A2142G (6.2%), C2195T (4.1%), T2182C (4.1%), and C2288T (2%). Although the C2195T mutation was only detected by Sanger sequencing, the overall results from pyrosequencing and Sanger sequencing platforms were comparable.

CONCLUSIONS

Pyrosequencing could be used as a rapid and practical platform in clinical laboratories to determine the susceptibility profile of H. pylori isolates. This might pave the way for efficient H. pylori eradication upon detection.

An Evolutionary Conservation and Druggability Analysis of Enzymes Belonging to the Bacterial Shikimate Pathway

Enzymes belonging to the shikimate pathway have long been considered promising targets for antibacterial drugs because they have no counterpart in mammals and are essential for bacterial growth and virulence. However, despite decades of research, there are currently no clinically relevant antibacterial drugs targeting any of these enzymes, and there are legitimate concerns about whether they are sufficiently druggable, i.e., whether they can be adequately modulated by small and potent drug-like molecules. In the present work, in silico analyses combining evolutionary conservation and druggability are performed to determine whether these enzymes are candidates for broad-spectrum antibacterial therapy. The results presented here indicate that the substrate-binding sites of most enzymes in this pathway are suitable drug targets because of their reasonable conservation and druggability scores. An exception was the substrate-binding site of 3-deoxy-D-arabino-heptulosonate-7-phosphate synthase, which was found to be undruggable because of its high content of charged residues and extremely high overall polarity. Although the presented study was designed from the perspective of broad-spectrum antibacterial drug development, this workflow can be readily applied to any antimicrobial target analysis, whether narrow- or broad-spectrum. Moreover, this research also contributes to a deeper understanding of these enzymes and provides valuable insights into their properties.

Local and Global Motions Underlying Antibiotic Binding in Bacterial Ribosome

The bacterial ribosome is one of the most important targets in the treatment of infectious diseases. As antibiotic resistance in bacteria poses a growing threat, a significant amount of effort is concentrated on exploring new drug-binding sites where testable predictions are of significance. Here, we study the dynamics of a ribosomal complex and 67 small and large subunits of the ribosomal crystal structures (64 antibiotic-bound, 3 antibiotic-free) from Deinococcus radiodurans, Escherichia coli, Haloarcula marismortui, and Thermus thermophilus by the Gaussian network model. Interestingly, a network of nucleotides coupled in high-frequency fluctuations reveals known antibiotic-binding sites. These sites are seen to locate at the interface of dynamic domains that have an intrinsic dynamic capacity to interfere with functional globular motions. The nucleotides and the residues fluctuating in the fast and slow modes of motion thus have promise for plausible antibiotic-binding and allosteric sites that can alter antibiotic binding and resistance. Overall, the present analysis brings a new dynamic perspective to the long-discussed link between small-molecule binding and large conformational changes of the supramolecule.

Augmented base pairing networks encode RNA-small molecule binding preferences

RNA-small molecule binding is a key regulatory mechanism which can stabilize 3D structures and activate molecular functions. The discovery of RNA-targeting compounds is thus a current topic of interest for novel therapies. Our work is a first attempt at bringing the scalability and generalization abilities of machine learning methods to the problem of RNA drug discovery, as well as a step towards understanding the interactions which drive binding specificity. Our tool, RNAmigos, builds and encodes a network representation of RNA structures to predict likely ligands for novel binding sites. We subject ligand predictions to virtual screening and show that we are able to place the true ligand in the 71st-73rd percentile in two decoy libraries, showing a significant improvement over several baselines, and a state of the art method. Furthermore, we observe that augmenting structural networks with non-canonical base pairing data is the only representation able to uncover a significant signal, suggesting that such interactions are a necessary source of binding specificity. We also find that pre-training with an auxiliary graph representation learning task significantly boosts performance of ligand prediction. This finding can serve as a general principle for RNA structure-function prediction when data is scarce. RNAmigos shows that RNA binding data contains structural patterns with potential for drug discovery, and provides methodological insights for possible applications to other structure-function learning tasks. The source code, data and a Web server are freely available at http://rnamigos.cs.mcgill.ca.

Assessment of the nucleotide modifications in the high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of the Escherichia coli 50S subunit

Post-transcriptional ribosomal RNA (rRNA) modifications are present in all organisms, but their exact functional roles and positions are yet to be fully characterized. Modified nucleotides have been implicated in the stabilization of RNA structure and regulation of ribosome biogenesis and protein synthesis. In some instances, rRNA modifications can confer antibiotic resistance. High-resolution ribosome structures are thus necessary for precise determination of modified nucleotides' positions, a task that has previously been accomplished by X-ray crystallography. Here, we present a cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structure of the Escherichia coli 50S subunit at an average resolution of 2.2 Å as an additional approach for mapping modification sites. Our structure confirms known modifications present in 23S rRNA and additionally allows for localization of Mg2+ ions and their coordinated water molecules. Using our cryo-EM structure as a testbed, we developed a program for assessment of cryo-EM map quality. This program can be easily used on any RNA-containing cryo-EM structure, and an associated Coot plugin allows for visualization of validated modifications, making it highly accessible.

Translation: The Universal Structural Core of Life

The Universal Gene Set of Life (UGSL) is common to genomes of all extant organisms. The UGSL is small, consisting of <100 genes, and is dominated by genes encoding the translation system. Here we extend the search for biological universality to three dimensions. We characterize and quantitate the universality of structure of macromolecules that are common to all of life. We determine that around 90% of prokaryotic ribosomal RNA (rRNA) forms a common core, which is the structural and functional foundation of rRNAs of all cytoplasmic ribosomes. We have established a database, which we call the Sparse and Efficient Representation of the Extant Biology (the SEREB database). This database contains complete and cross-validated rRNA sequences of species chosen, as far as possible, to sparsely and efficiently sample all known phyla. Atomic-resolution structures of ribosomes provide data for structural comparison and validation of sequence-based models. We developed a similarity statistic called pairing adjusted sequence entropy, which characterizes paired nucleotides by their adherence to covariation and unpaired nucleotides by conventional conservation of identity. For canonically paired nucleotides the unit of structure is the nucleotide pair. For unpaired nucleotides, the unit of structure is the nucleotide. By quantitatively defining the common core of rRNA, we systematize the conservation and divergence of the translational system across the tree of life, and can begin to understand the unique evolutionary pressures that cause its universality. We explore the relationship between ribosomal size and diversity, geological time, and organismal complexity.

Exploring allosteric communication in multiple states of the bacterial ribosome using residue network analysis

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most important problems of our era and hence the discovery of new effective therapeutics is urgent. At this point, studying the allosteric communication pathways in the bacterial ribosome and revealing allosteric sites/residues is critical for designing new inhibitors or repurposing readily approved drugs for this enormous machine. To shed light onto molecular details of the allosteric mechanisms, here we construct residue networks of the bacterial ribosomal complex at four different states of translation by using an effective description of the intermolecular interactions. Centrality analysis of these networks highlights the functional roles of structural components and critical residues on the ribosomal complex. High betweenness scores reveal pathways of residues connecting numerous sites on the structure. Interestingly, these pathways assemble highly conserved residues, drug binding sites, and known allosterically linked regions on the same structure. This study proposes a new residue-level model to test how distant sites on the molecular machine may be linked through hub residues that are critically located on the contact topology to inherently form communication pathways. Findings also indicate intersubunit bridges B1b, B3, B5, B7, and B8 as critical targets to design novel antibiotics.

Identification of potential allosteric communication pathways between functional sites of the bacterial ribosome by graph and elastic network models

BACKGROUND

Accumulated evidence indicates that bacterial ribosome employs allostery throughout its structure for protein synthesis. The nature of the allosteric communication between remote functional sites remains unclear, but the contact topology and dynamics of residues may play role in transmission of a perturbation to distant sites.

METHODS/RESULTS

We employ two computationally efficient approaches - graph and elastic network modeling to gain insights about the allosteric communication in ribosome. Using graph representation of the structure, we perform k-shortest pathways analysis between peptidyl transferase center-ribosomal tunnel, decoding center-peptidyl transferase center - previously reported functional sites having allosteric communication. Detailed analysis on intact structures points to common and alternative shortest pathways preferred by different states of translation. All shortest pathways capture drug target sites and allosterically important regions. Elastic network model further reveals that residues along all pathways have the ability of quickly establishing pair-wise communication and to help the propagation of a perturbation in long-ranges during functional motions of the complex.

CONCLUSIONS

Contact topology and inherent dynamics of ribosome configure potential communication pathways between functional sites in different translation states. Inter-subunit bridges B2a, B3 and P-tRNA come forward for their high potential in assisting allostery during translation. Especially B3 emerges as a potential druggable site.

GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE

This study indicates that the ribosome topology forms a basis for allosteric communication, which can be disrupted by novel drugs to kill drug-resistant bacteria. Our computationally efficient approach not only overlaps with experimental evidence on allosteric regulation in ribosome but also proposes new druggable sites.

The role of RNA conformation in RNA-protein recognition

Interactions between protein and RNA play a key role in many biological processes in the gene expression pathway. Those interactions are mediated through a variety of RNA-binding protein domains, among them the highly abundant RNA recognition motif (RRM). Here we studied protein-RNA complexes from different RNA binding domain families solved by NMR and x-ray crystallography. Characterizing the structural properties of the RNA at the binding interfaces revealed an unexpected number of nucleotides with unusual RNA conformations, specifically found in RNA-RRM complexes. Moreover, we observed that the RNA nucleotides that are directly involved in interactions with the RRM domains, via hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic contacts, are significantly enriched with unique RNA conformations. Further examination of the sequences binding the RRM domain showed a preference for G nucleotides in syn conformation to precede or to follow U nucleotides in the anti-conformation, and U nucleotides in C2' endo conformation to precede U and G nucleotides possessing the more common C3' endo conformation. These findings imply a possible mode of RNA recognition by the RRM domains which enables the recognition of a wide variety of different RNA sequences and shapes. Overall, this study suggests an additional way by which the RRM domain recognizes its RNA target, involving a conformational readout.

Determinants of the species selectivity of oxazolidinone antibiotics targeting the large ribosomal subunit

Oxazolidinone antibiotics bind to the highly conserved peptidyl transferase center in the ribosome. For developing selective antibiotics, a profound understanding of the selectivity determinants is required. We have performed for the first time technically challenging molecular dynamics simulations in combination with molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (MM-PBSA) free energy calculations of the oxazolidinones linezolid and radezolid bound to the large ribosomal subunits of the eubacterium Deinococcus radiodurans and the archaeon Haloarcula marismortui. A remarkably good agreement of the computed relative binding free energy with selectivity data available from experiment for linezolid is found. On an atomic level, the analyses reveal an intricate interplay of structural, energetic, and dynamic determinants of the species selectivity of oxazolidinone antibiotics: A structural decomposition of free energy components identifies influences that originate from first and second shell nucleotides of the binding sites and lead to (opposing) contributions from interaction energies, solvation, and entropic factors. These findings add another layer of complexity to the current knowledge on structure-activity relationships of oxazolidinones binding to the ribosome and suggest that selectivity analyses solely based on structural information and qualitative arguments on interactions may not reach far enough. The computational analyses presented here should be of sufficient accuracy to fill this gap.

Regulation of gene expression by macrolide-induced ribosomal frameshifting

The expression of many genes is controlled by upstream ORFs (uORFs). Typically, the progression of the ribosome through a regulatory uORF, which depends on the physiological state of the cell, influences the expression of the downstream gene. In the classic mechanism of induction of macrolide resistance genes, antibiotics promote translation arrest within the uORF, and the static ribosome induces a conformational change in mRNA, resulting in the activation of translation of the resistance cistron. We show that ketolide antibiotics, which do not induce ribosome stalling at the uORF of the ermC resistance gene, trigger its expression via a unique mechanism. Ketolides promote frameshifting at the uORF, allowing the translating ribosome to invade the intergenic spacer. The dynamic unfolding of the mRNA structure leads to the activation of resistance. Conceptually similar mechanisms may control other cellular genes. The identified property of ketolides to reduce the fidelity of reading frame maintenance may have medical implications.

Sequence-specific transitions of the torsion angle gamma change the polar-hydrophobic profile of the DNA grooves: implication for indirect protein-DNA recognition

Variations of the shape and polarity of the DNA grooves caused by changes of the DNA conformation play an important role in the DNA readout. Despite the fact that non-canonical trans and gauche- conformations of the DNA backbone angle γ (O5'-C5'-C4'-C3') are frequently found in the DNA crystal structures, their possible role in the DNA recognition has not been studied systematically. In order to fill in this gap, we analyze the available high-resolution crystal structures of the naked and complexed DNA. The analysis shows that the non-canonical γ angle conformations are present both in the naked and bound DNA, more often in the bound vs. naked DNA, and in the nucleotides with the A-like vs. the B-like sugar pucker. The alternative angle γ torsions are more frequently observed in the purines with the A-like sugar pucker and in the pyrimidines with the B-like sugar conformation. The minor groove of the nucleotides with non-canonical γ angle conformation is more polar, while the major groove is more hydrophobic than in the nucleotides with the classical γ torsions due to variations in exposure of the polar and hydrophobic groups of the DNA backbone. The propensity of the nucleotides with different γ angle conformations to participate in the protein-nucleic acid contacts in the minor and major grooves is connected with their sugar pucker and sequence-specific. Our findings imply that the angle γ transitions contribute to the process of the protein-DNA recognition due to modification of the polar/hydrophobic profile of the DNA grooves.

Conformational readout of RNA by small ligands

RNA molecules have highly versatile structures that can fold into myriad conformations, providing many potential pockets for binding small molecules. The increasing number of available RNA structures, in complex with proteins, small ligands and in free form, enables the design of new therapeutically useful RNA-binding ligands. Here we studied RNA ligand complexes from 10 RNA groups extracted from the protein data bank (PDB), including adaptive and non-adaptive complexes. We analyzed the chemical, physical, structural and conformational properties of binding pockets around the ligand. Comparing the properties of ligand-binding pockets to the properties of computed pockets extracted from all available RNA structures and RNA-protein interfaces, revealed that ligand-binding pockets, mainly the adaptive pockets, are characterized by unique properties, specifically enriched in rare conformations of the nucleobase and the sugar pucker. Further, we demonstrate that nucleotides possessing the rare conformations are preferentially involved in direct interactions with the ligand. Overall, based on our comprehensive analysis of RNA-ligand complexes, we suggest that the unique conformations adopted by RNA nucleotides play an important role in RNA recognition by small ligands. We term the recognition of a binding site by a ligand via the unique RNA conformations "RNA conformational readout." We propose that "conformational readout" is a general way by which RNA binding pockets are recognized and selected from an ensemble of different RNA states.

Influence of thiostrepton binding on the ribosomal GTPase associated region characterized by molecular dynamics simulation

The thiostrepton antibiotic inhibits bacterial protein synthesis by binding to a cleft formed by the ribosomal protein L11 and 23S's rRNA helices 43-44 on the 70S ribosome. It was proposed from crystal structures that the ligand restricts L11's N-terminal movement and thus prevents proper translation factor binding. An exact understanding of thiostrepton's impact on the binding site's dynamics at atomistic resolution is still missing. Here we report an all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of the binary L11·rRNA and the ternary L11·rRNA·thiostrepton complex (rRNA = helices 43-44). We demonstrate that thiostrepton directly impacts the binding site's atomic and biomacromolecular dynamics.

Allosteric control of the ribosome by small-molecule antibiotics

Protein synthesis is targeted by numerous, chemically distinct antibiotics that bind and inhibit key functional centers of the ribosome. Using single-molecule imaging and X-ray crystallography, we show that the aminoglycoside neomycin blocks aminoacyl-transfer RNA (aa-tRNA) selection and translocation as well as ribosome recycling by binding to helix 69 (H69) of 23S ribosomal RNA within the large subunit of the Escherichia coli ribosome. There, neomycin prevents the remodeling of intersubunit bridges that normally accompanies the process of subunit rotation to stabilize a partially rotated ribosome configuration in which peptidyl (P)-site tRNA is constrained in a previously unidentified hybrid position. Direct measurements show that this neomycin-stabilized intermediate is incompatible with the translation factor binding that is required for distinct protein synthesis reactions. These findings reveal the functional importance of reversible intersubunit rotation to the translation mechanism and shed new light on the allosteric control of ribosome functions by small-molecule antibiotics.

Established and emerging trends in computational drug discovery in the structural genomics era

Bioinformatics and chemoinformatics approaches contribute to hit discovery, hit-to-lead optimization, safety profiling, and target identification and enhance our overall understanding of the health and disease states. A vast repertoire of computational methods has been reported and increasingly combined in order to address more and more challenging targets or complex molecular mechanisms in the context of large-scale integration of structure and bioactivity data produced by private and public drug research. This review explores some key computational methods directly linked to drug discovery and chemical biology with a special emphasis on compound collection preparation, virtual screening, protein docking, and systems pharmacology. A list of generally freely available software packages and online resources is provided, and examples of successful applications are briefly commented upon.

Macrolide antibiotics in the ribosome exit tunnel: species-specific binding and action

Macrolide antibiotics bind in the nascent peptide exit tunnel of the ribosome and inhibit protein synthesis. The majority of information on the principles of binding and action of these antibiotics comes from studies that employed model organisms. However, there is a growing understanding that the binding of macrolides to their target, as well as the mode of inhibition of translation, can be strongly influenced by variations in ribosome structure between bacterial species. Awareness of the existence of species-specific differences in drug action and appreciation of the extent of these differences can stimulate future work on developing better macrolide drugs. In this review, representative cases illustrating the organism-specific binding and action of macrolide antibiotics, as well as species-specific mechanisms of resistance are analyzed.

Misannotations of rRNA can now generate 90% false positive protein matches in metatranscriptomic studies

In the course of analyzing 9,522,746 pyrosequencing reads from 23 stations in the Southwestern Pacific and equatorial Atlantic oceans, it came to our attention that misannotations of rRNA as proteins is now so widespread that false positive matching of rRNA pyrosequencing reads to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) non-redundant protein database approaches 90%. One conserved portion of 23S rRNA was consistently misannotated often enough to prompt curators at Pfam to create a spurious protein family. Detailed examination of the annotation history of each seed sequence in the spurious Pfam protein family (PF10695, 'Cw-hydrolase') uncovered issues in the standard operating procedures and quality assurance programs of major sequencing centers, and other issues relating to the curation practices of those managing public databases such as GenBank and SwissProt. We offer recommendations for all these issues, and recommend as well that workers in the field of metatranscriptomics take extra care to avoid including false positive matches in their datasets.