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Publication Abstract from PubMed

Despite the need for new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant bacteria, current clinical combinations are largely restricted to beta-lactam antibiotics paired with beta-lactamase inhibitors. We have adapted a Staphylococcus aureus antisense knockdown strategy to genetically identify the cell division Z ring components-FtsA, FtsZ, and FtsW-as beta-lactam susceptibility determinants of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). We demonstrate that the FtsZ-specific inhibitor PC190723 acts synergistically with beta-lactam antibiotics in vitro and in vivo and that this combination is efficacious in a murine model of MRSA infection. Fluorescence microscopy localization studies reveal that synergy between these agents is likely to be elicited by the concomitant delocalization of their cognate drug targets (FtsZ and PBP2) in MRSA treated with PC190723. A 2.0 A crystal structure of S. aureus FtsZ in complex with PC190723 identifies the compound binding site, which corresponds to the predominant location of mutations conferring resistance to PC190723 (PC190723(R)). Although structural studies suggested that these drug resistance mutations may be difficult to combat through chemical modification of PC190723, combining PC190723 with the beta-lactam antibiotic imipenem markedly reduced the spontaneous frequency of PC190723(R) mutants. Multiple MRSA PC190723(R) FtsZ mutants also displayed attenuated virulence and restored susceptibility to beta-lactam antibiotics in vitro and in a mouse model of imipenem efficacy. Collectively, these data support a target-based approach to rationally develop synergistic combination agents that mitigate drug resistance and effectively treat MRSA infections.

Restoring methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus susceptibility to beta-lactam antibiotics.,Tan CM, Therien AG, Lu J, Lee SH, Caron A, Gill CJ, Lebeau-Jacob C, Benton-Perdomo L, Monteiro JM, Pereira PM, Elsen NL, Wu J, Deschamps K, Petcu M, Wong S, Daigneault E, Kramer S, Liang L, Maxwell E, Claveau D, Vaillancourt J, Skorey K, Tam J, Wang H, Meredith TC, Sillaots S, Wang-Jarantow L, Ramtohul Y, Langlois E, Landry F, Reid JC, Parthasarathy G, Sharma S, Baryshnikova A, Lumb KJ, Pinho MG, Soisson SM, Roemer T Sci Transl Med. 2012 Mar 21;4(126):126ra35. PMID:22440737^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.