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The high infection rates and recent emergence of extremely drug resistant forms of
Mycobacterium tuberculosis pose a significant challenge for global health. The NADH-
dependent enoyl-ACP-reductase InhA of the type II mycobacterial fatty acid biosynthesis
pathway is a well-validated target for inhibiting mycobacterial growth. InhA has been
shown to be inhibited by a variety of compound series. Prominent classes of InhA
inhibitors from literature include diaryl ethers, pyrrolidine carboxamides and arylamides
which can be subjected to further development. Despite the progress in this area, very
few compounds are in clinical development phase. The present work involves a detailed
computational investigation of the binding modes and structure-based optimisation of
pyrrolidine carboxamides as InhA inhibitors.
With substituents of widely varying bulkiness, the pyrrolidine carboxamide dataset
presented a challenge for prediction of binding mode as well as affinity. Using advanced
docking protocols and in-house developed pose selection procedures, the binding modes
of 44 compounds were predicted. The poses from docking were used in short molecular
dynamics (MD) simulations to ascertain the dominant binding conformations for the
bulkier members of the series. Subsequently, an activity-based classification strategy
could be developed to circumvent the affinity prediction problems observed with this
dataset. The prominent motions of the bound ligand and the active site residues were
then ascertained using Essential Dynamics (ED). The information from ED and literature
was subsequently used to design a total of 20 compounds that were subjected to extensive
in-silico evaluations. Finally, the molecular determinants of rapid-reversible binding of
pyrrolidine carboxamides were investigated using long MD simulations.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of tuberculosis and responsible for more than eight million new infections and about two million deaths each year. Novel chemotherapeutics are urgently needed to treat the emerging threat of multi drug resistant and extensively drug resistant strains. Cell wall biosynthesis is a widely used target for chemotherapeutic intervention in bacterial infections. In mycobacteria, the cell wall is comprised of mycolic acids, very long chain fatty acids that provide protection and allow the bacteria to persist in the human macrophage. The type II fatty acid biosynthesis pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis synthesizes fatty acids with a length of up to 56 carbon atoms that are the precursors of the critical mycobacterial cell wall components mycolic acids. KasA, the mycobacterial ß-ketoacyl synthase and InhA, the mycobacterial enoyl reductase, are essential enzymes in the fatty acid biosynthesis pathway and validated drug targets. In this work, KasA was expressed in Mycobacterium smegmatis, purified and co-crystallized in complex with the natural thiolactone antibiotic thiolactomycin (TLM). High-resolution crystal structures of KasA and the C171Q KasA variant, which mimics the acyl enzyme intermediate of the enzyme, were solved in absence and presence of bound TLM. The crystal structures reveal how the inhibitor is coordinated by the enzyme and thus specifically pinpoint towards possible modifications to increase the affinity of the compound and develop potent new drugs against tuberculosis. Comparisons between the TLM bound crystal structures explain the preferential binding of TLM to the acylated form of KasA. Furthermore, long polyethylene glycol molecules are bound to KasA that mimic a fatty acid substrate of approximately 40 carbon atoms length. These structures thus provide the first insights into the molecular mechanism of substrate recognition and reveal how a wax-like substance can be accommodated in a cytosolic environment. InhA was purified and co-crystallized in complex with the slow, tight binding inhibitor 2-(o-tolyloxy)-5-hexylphenol (PT70). Two crystal structures of the ternary InhA-NAD+-PT70 were solved and reveal how the inhibitor is bound to the substrate binding pocket. Both structures display an ordered substrate binding loop and corroborate the hypothesis that slow onset inhibition is coupled to loop ordering. Upon loop ordering, the active site entrance is more restricted and the inhibitor is kept inside more tightly. These studies provide additional information on the mechanistic imperatives for slow onset inhibition of enoyl ACP reductases.