Peroxide antimalarial drugs impact redox homeostasis in Plasmodium falciparum infected red blood cells
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ABSTRACT: Plasmodium falciparum causes the most lethal form of malaria. The frontline treatments for this severe disease are combination therapies based on semisynthetic peroxide antimalarials, known as artemisinins. There is growing resistance to artemisinins and new drugs with novel mechanisms of action are urgently required. Synthetic peroxide antimalarials, known as ozonides, exhibit potent antimalarial activity both in vitro and in vivo. Here, we used chemical proteomics to investigate the protein alkylation targets of clickable artemisinin and ozonide probes, including an analogue of the ozonide clinical candidate, OZ439. We greatly expanded the list of protein targets for peroxide antimalarials and identified redox processes as being significantly enriched from the list of protein targets for both artemisinins and ozonides. Disrupted redox homeostasis was confirmed with the use of a genetically encoded fluorescence-based biosensor comprising a redox-sensitive GFP (roGFP) fused to human glutaredoxin 1. This facilitated specific and dynamic live imaging of the glutathione redox potential in the cytosol of peroxide-treated infected red blood cells with high sensitivity and temporal resolution. We also used a targeted LC-MS based thiol metabolomics assay to accurately measure relative changes in cellular thiol levels (including thiol metabolites, glutathione precursors and oxidised and reduced glutathione) within peroxide-treated P. falciparum-infected red blood cells. This work shows that peroxide antimalarials disproportionately alkylate proteins involved in redox homeostasis and that disrupted redox processes are involved in the mechanism of action of these important antimalarials.
INSTRUMENT(S): Q Exactive HF
ORGANISM(S): Plasmodium Falciparum Homo Sapiens (human)
TISSUE(S): Blood Cell, Blood
DISEASE(S): Malaria
SUBMITTER: Ghizal Siddiqui
LAB HEAD: darren creek
PROVIDER: PXD027334 | Pride | 2022-02-17
REPOSITORIES: Pride
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