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Lucky AB, Wang C, Li X, Liang X, Muneer A, Miao J. Transforming the CRISPR/dCas9-based gene regulation technique into a forward screening tool in Plasmodium falciparum. iScience 2024; 27:109602. [PMID: 38617559 PMCID: PMC11015506 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109602] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2023] [Revised: 02/11/2024] [Accepted: 03/25/2024] [Indexed: 04/16/2024] Open
Abstract
It is a significant challenge to assess the functions of many uncharacterized genes in human malaria parasites. Here, we present a genetic screening tool to assess the contribution of essential genes from Plasmodium falciparum by the conditional CRISPR-/deadCas9-based interference and activation (i/a) systems. We screened both CRISPRi and CRISPRa sets, consisting of nine parasite lines per set targeting nine genes via their respective gRNAs. By conducting amplicon sequencing of gRNA loci, we identified the contribution of each targeted gene to parasite fitness upon drug (artemisinin, chloroquine) and stress (starvation, heat shock) treatment. The screening was highly reproducible, and the screening libraries were easily generated by transfection of mixed plasmids expressing different gRNAs. We demonstrated that this screening is straightforward, robust, and can provide a fast and efficient tool to study essential genes that have long presented a bottleneck in assessing their functions using existing genetic tools.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amuza Byaruhanga Lucky
- Department of Internal Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Chengqi Wang
- Center for Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Xiaolian Li
- Department of Internal Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Xiaoying Liang
- Department of Internal Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Azhar Muneer
- Department of Internal Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
| | - Jun Miao
- Department of Internal Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
- Center for Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 3720 Spectrum Boulevard, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
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Paulikat M, Piccini G, Ippoliti E, Rossetti G, Arnesano F, Carloni P. Physical Chemistry of Chloroquine Permeation through the Cell Membrane with Atomistic Detail. J Chem Inf Model 2023; 63:7124-7132. [PMID: 37947485 PMCID: PMC10685453 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01363] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/25/2023] [Revised: 10/11/2023] [Accepted: 10/12/2023] [Indexed: 11/12/2023]
Abstract
We provide a molecular-level description of the thermodynamics and mechanistic aspects of drug permeation through the cell membrane. As a case study, we considered the antimalaria FDA approved drug chloroquine. Molecular dynamics simulations of the molecule (in its neutral and protonated form) were performed in the presence of different lipid bilayers, with the aim of uncovering key aspects of the permeation process, a fundamental step for the drug's action. Free energy values obtained by well-tempered metadynamics simulations suggest that the neutral form is the only permeating protomer, consistent with experimental data. H-bond interactions of the drug with water molecules and membrane headgroups play a crucial role for permeation. The presence of the transmembrane potential, investigated here for the first time in a drug permeation study, does not qualitatively affect these conclusions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mirko Paulikat
- Computational
Biomedicine, Institute of Advanced Simulations IAS-5/Institute for
Neuroscience and Medicine INM-9, Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH, 52428 Jülich, Germany
| | - GiovanniMaria Piccini
- Institute
of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany
| | - Emiliano Ippoliti
- Computational
Biomedicine, Institute of Advanced Simulations IAS-5/Institute for
Neuroscience and Medicine INM-9, Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH, 52428 Jülich, Germany
| | - Giulia Rossetti
- Computational
Biomedicine, Institute of Advanced Simulations IAS-5/Institute for
Neuroscience and Medicine INM-9, Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH, 52428 Jülich, Germany
- Jülich
Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH, 52428 Jülich, Germany
- Department
of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen 52062, Germany
| | - Fabio Arnesano
- Department
of Chemistry, University of Bari “Aldo
Moro”, Bari 70125, Italy
| | - Paolo Carloni
- Computational
Biomedicine, Institute of Advanced Simulations IAS-5/Institute for
Neuroscience and Medicine INM-9, Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH, 52428 Jülich, Germany
- Department
of Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen 52062, Germany
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Gao P, Liu YQ, Xiao W, Xia F, Chen JY, Gu LW, Yang F, Zheng LH, Zhang JZ, Zhang Q, Li ZJ, Meng YQ, Zhu YP, Tang H, Shi QL, Guo QY, Zhang Y, Xu CC, Dai LY, Wang JG. Identification of antimalarial targets of chloroquine by a combined deconvolution strategy of ABPP and MS-CETSA. Mil Med Res 2022; 9:30. [PMID: 35698214 PMCID: PMC9195458 DOI: 10.1186/s40779-022-00390-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2021] [Accepted: 05/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Malaria is a devastating infectious disease that disproportionally threatens hundreds of millions of people in developing countries. In the history of anti-malaria campaign, chloroquine (CQ) has played an indispensable role, however, its mechanism of action (MoA) is not fully understood. METHODS We used the principle of photo-affinity labeling and click chemistry-based functionalization in the design of a CQ probe and developed a combined deconvolution strategy of activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) and mass spectrometry-coupled cellular thermal shift assay (MS-CETSA) that identified the protein targets of CQ in an unbiased manner in this study. The interactions between CQ and these identified potential protein hits were confirmed by biophysical and enzymatic assays. RESULTS We developed a novel clickable, photo-affinity chloroquine analog probe (CQP) which retains the antimalarial activity in the nanomole range, and identified a total of 40 proteins that specifically interacted and photo-crosslinked with CQP which was inhibited in the presence of excess CQ. Using MS-CETSA, we identified 83 candidate interacting proteins out of a total of 3375 measured parasite proteins. At the same time, we identified 8 proteins as the most potential hits which were commonly identified by both methods. CONCLUSIONS We found that CQ could disrupt glycolysis and energy metabolism of malarial parasites through direct binding with some of the key enzymes, a new mechanism that is different from its well-known inhibitory effect of hemozoin formation. This is the first report of identifying CQ antimalarial targets by a parallel usage of labeled (ABPP) and label-free (MS-CETSA) methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peng Gao
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Yan-Qing Liu
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Wei Xiao
- Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China
| | - Fei Xia
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Jia-Yun Chen
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Li-Wei Gu
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Fan Yang
- Department of Geriatrics, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen, 518020, Guangdong, China
| | - Liu-Hai Zheng
- Department of Geriatrics, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen, 518020, Guangdong, China
| | - Jun-Zhe Zhang
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Qian Zhang
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Zhi-Jie Li
- Department of Geriatrics, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen, 518020, Guangdong, China
| | - Yu-Qing Meng
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Yong-Ping Zhu
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Huan Tang
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Qiao-Li Shi
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Qiu-Yan Guo
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Ying Zhang
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China
| | - Cheng-Chao Xu
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China.
| | - Ling-Yun Dai
- Department of Geriatrics, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen, 518020, Guangdong, China. .,Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, 138673, Singapore.
| | - Ji-Gang Wang
- Artemisinin Research Center, Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100700, China. .,Department of Geriatrics, the Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, the First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen, 518020, Guangdong, China. .,Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117543, Singapore.
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