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Para-aminosalicylic acid acts as an alternative substrate of folate metabolism in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.


ABSTRACT: Folate biosynthesis is an established anti-infective target, and the antifolate para-aminosalicylic acid (PAS) was one of the first anti-infectives introduced into clinical practice on the basis of target-based drug discovery. Fifty years later, PAS continues to be used to treat tuberculosis. PAS is assumed to inhibit dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis by mimicking the substrate p-aminobenzoate (PABA). However, we found that sulfonamide inhibitors of DHPS inhibited growth of M. tuberculosis only weakly because of their intracellular metabolism. In contrast, PAS served as a replacement substrate for DHPS. Products of PAS metabolism at this and subsequent steps in folate metabolism inhibited those enzymes, competing with their substrates. PAS is thus a prodrug that blocks growth of M. tuberculosis when its active forms are generated by enzymes in the pathway they poison.

SUBMITTER: Chakraborty S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3792487 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Para-aminosalicylic acid acts as an alternative substrate of folate metabolism in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Chakraborty Sumit S   Gruber Todd T   Barry Clifton E CE   Boshoff Helena I HI   Rhee Kyu Y KY  

Science (New York, N.Y.) 20121101 6115


Folate biosynthesis is an established anti-infective target, and the antifolate para-aminosalicylic acid (PAS) was one of the first anti-infectives introduced into clinical practice on the basis of target-based drug discovery. Fifty years later, PAS continues to be used to treat tuberculosis. PAS is assumed to inhibit dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis by mimicking the substrate p-aminobenzoate (PABA). However, we found that sulfonamide inhibitors of DHPS inhibited gro  ...[more]

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