Targeting the Plasmodium falciparum plasmepsin V by ligand-based virtual screening

Author(s)

Meissner, Kamila Anna ^[1] ; Kronenberger, Thales ^{[2, 1]} ; Maltarollo, Vinicius Goncalves ^[3] ; Goulart Trossini, Gustavo Henrique ^[4] ; Wrenger, Carsten ^[1]

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Biomed Sci, Unit Drug Discovery, Dept Parasitol, Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

^[2] Univ Hosp Tubingen, Dept Internal Med 8, Tubingen - Germany

^[3] Univ Fed Minas Gerais, Fac Pharm, Dept Pharmaceut Prod, Belo Horizonte, MG - Brazil

^[4] Univ Sao Paulo, Fac Pharmaceut Sci, Sao Paulo, SP - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: CHEMICAL BIOLOGY & DRUG DESIGN; v. 93, n. 3, p. 300-312, MAR 2019.
• Web of Science Citations: 2

Abstract

Malaria is a devastating disease depending only on chemotherapy as treatment. However, medication is losing efficacy, and therefore, there is an urgent need for the discovery of novel pharmaceutics. Recently, plasmepsin V, an aspartic protease anchored in the endoplasmaic reticulum, was demonstrated as responsible for the trafficking of parasite-derived proteins to the erythrocytic surface and further validated as a drug target. In this sense, ligand-based virtual screening has been applied to design inhibitors that target plasmepsin V of P. falciparum (PMV). After screening 5.5 million compounds, four novel plasmepsin inhibitors have been identified which were subsequently analyzed for the potency at the cellular level. Since PMV is membrane-anchored, the verification in vivo by using transgenic PMV overexpressing P. falciparum cells has been performed in order to evaluate drug efficacy. Two lead compounds, revealing IC50 values were 44.2 and 19.1 mu m, have been identified targeting plasmepsin V in vivo and do not significantly affect the cell viability of human cells up to 300 mu m. We herein report the use of the consensus of individual virtual screening as a new technique to design new ligands, and we propose two new lead compounds as novel protease inhibitors to target malaria. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/03966-4 - Targeting lipoic acid salvage and biosynthesis pathways in MRSA
• Grantee: Carsten Wrenger
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 15/26722-8 - Drug discovery against human infectious diseases
• Grantee: Carsten Wrenger
• Support type: Research Projects - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 16/24790-9 - Dissecting Plasmodium falciparum EXP1/GST2 for xenobiotic defence in glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency
• Grantee: Kamila Anna Meissner
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 14/03644-9 - Targeting alternative ligand-binding sites in nuclear receptors using computational and experimental screening
• Grantee: Thales Kronenberger
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate