Bulgecin Template for Potentiation of beta-Lactam Antibiotics

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Project Summary/Abstract Gram-negative bacteria have become broadly resistant to known classes of antibiotics. Treatment of infections by these pathogens has become increasingly challenging and efforts in the past two decades in discoveries of new classes of antibacterial agents have failed. In this grant application, we have turned our attention to bulgecins, a group of three natural products (bulgecins A, B and C) discovered in the 1980s, which potentiate the activities of b-lactam antibiotics to Gram-negative bacteria. The three natural products were prepared by total synthesis and we documented the potentiation activity in microbiological experiments. Furthermore, we documented by both fluorescence microscopy and by scanning-electron microscopy that the combination of bulgecin A and a b-lactam antibiotic (ceftazidime or meropenem) cause bulges in the bacterial envelope, which are points of structural instability that burst and lead to bactericidal effect. In addition, we documented that merely two lytic transglycosylases out of 11 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa—Slt and MltD (with ceftazidime) and Slt and MltG (with meropenem)—are the targets of bulgecin A. We also report the X-ray structure for the complex of Slt with bulgecin A. We disclose the next phase of this research in two Specific Aims. Specific Aim 1 addresses our planned analysis of the bulgecin-biosynthetic cluster, which we discovered recently. The eight-gene cluster converts L-serine and L-aspartic acid to bulgecinine, a key structural component of bulgecins, and then in turn, to bulgecins A, B and C. We propose to study these genes both for their enzymological reactions and for their structures. A proposal is outlined to prepare the high-value bulgecinine using a host bacterium as a “one-pot” reaction vessel. We already have reported a chemical synthesis for bulgecinine and a second (shorter) synthetic approach is also proposed. A detailed plan is outlined in Specific Aim 2 to optimize the bulgecin template. The process takes advantage of our X-ray structure for the complex of Slt and bulgecin A in a computational analysis to identify analogs that will bind more potently to lytic transglycosynases and achieve penetration into Gram-negatives more avidly. The proposed targets will be synthesized and fully analyzed in a series of both in vitro and in vivo experiments in identification of a suitable combination of a bulgecin analog with a b-lactam antibiotic in fighting Gram-negative bacterial infections.