Development of an effective fluorescence probe for discovery of aminopeptidase inhibitors to suppress biofilm formation
作者:Tianhu Zhao、Jian Zhang、Maomao Tang、Luyan Z. Ma、Xiaoguang Lei
DOI:10.1038/s41429-019-0166-z
日期:2019.6
The human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa can easily form biofilms. The extracellular matrix produced by the bacterial cells acts as a physical barrier to hinder the antibiotics treatment. It is necessary to destroy the biofilm in order to improve the efficacy of antibiotics. However, it has been a significant challenge to develop effective small molecules targeting the components of biofilm matrix. In this study, we report the development of a new effective fluorescence probe that could be used in the high throughput screening to identify novel small molecule inhibitors targeting the most abundant component in the biofilm formation: P. aeruginosa aminopeptidase (PaAP). Through screening of an in-house chemical library, a commercially available drug, balsalazide, has been identified as a novel PaAP inhibitor, which exhibited remarkable anti-biofilm effect. Our study indicated that the newly developed fluorescence probe is applicable in exploring new aminopeptidase inhibitors, and it also warrants further investigation of balsalazide as a new anti-biofilm agent to treat P. aeruginosa infection in combination with known antibiotics.
人类病原体铜绿假单胞菌很容易形成生物膜。细菌细胞产生的细胞外基质会形成物理屏障,阻碍抗生素的治疗效果。为了提高抗生素的疗效,必须破坏生物膜。然而,开发针对生物膜基质成分的有效小分子药物一直是一项重大挑战。在这项研究中,我们报告了一种新型有效荧光探针的开发,该探针可用于高通量筛选,以鉴定针对生物膜形成中最丰富成分的新型小分子抑制剂:铜绿假单胞菌氨基肽酶(PaAP)。通过对内部化学库的筛选,一种市售药物——巴柳氮被鉴定为一种新型PaAP抑制剂,该抑制剂表现出显著的抗生物膜作用。我们的研究表明,新开发的荧光探针适用于探索新的氨基肽酶抑制剂,并且还证明了巴柳氮作为新的抗生物膜剂与已知抗生素联合治疗铜绿假单胞菌感染的进一步研究价值。