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RETRACTED ARTICLE: IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance

This article was retracted on 27 September 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

Isoprenoids are vital for all organisms, in which they maintain membrane stability and support core functions such as respiration1. IspH, an enzyme in the methyl erythritol phosphate pathway of isoprenoid synthesis, is essential for Gram-negative bacteria, mycobacteria and apicomplexans2,3. Its substrate, (E)-4-hydroxy-3-methyl-but-2-enyl pyrophosphate (HMBPP), is not produced in metazoans, and in humans and other primates it activates cytotoxic Vγ9Vδ2 T cells at extremely low concentrations4,5,6. Here we describe a class of IspH inhibitors and refine their potency to nanomolar levels through structure-guided analogue design. After modification of these compounds into prodrugs for delivery into bacteria, we show that they kill clinical isolates of several multidrug-resistant bacteria—including those from the genera Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Vibrio, Shigella, Salmonella, Yersinia, Mycobacterium and Bacillus—yet are relatively non-toxic to mammalian cells. Proteomic analysis reveals that bacteria treated with these prodrugs resemble those after conditional IspH knockdown. Notably, these prodrugs also induce the expansion and activation of human Vγ9Vδ2 T cells in a humanized mouse model of bacterial infection. The prodrugs we describe here synergize the direct killing of bacteria with a simultaneous rapid immune response by cytotoxic γδ T cells, which may limit the increase of antibiotic-resistant bacterial populations.

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Fig. 1: Testing IspH as a target for the DAIA strategy.
Fig. 2: Inhibition of purified IspH and the killing of bacteria by IspH inhibitors.
Fig. 3: Analogues of the prodrug C23 have lower MIC90 values against multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of Gram-negative bacteria than best-in-class antibiotics.
Fig. 4: γδ T cell activation in prodrug-treated, bacteria-infected PBMCs and humanized mice.

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Data availability

Molecular docking studies were performed using the E. coli IspH structure 3KE8 from the Protein Data Bank. The atomic field property of the IspH binding pocket was mapped using the Internal Coordinate Mechanics (ICM) software (http://www.molsoft.com/icm_pro.html) from Molsoft and the molecular docking of 10 million compounds from the MolCart library (https://www.molsoft.com/molcart.html) was carried out using theVirtual Ligand Screening software (https://molsoft.com/vls.html) from Molsoft. Owing to the lack of a suitable online repository, all docking data are available upon request as an .icb file, viewable using the free ICM browser (http://www.molsoft.com/icm_browser.html). LC–MS/MS spectra were searched against the UniProt E. coli (BL21-DE3) database (https://www.uniprot.org/proteomes/UP000002032). The proteomics data are available on MassIVE (https://massive.ucsd.edu/) using the accession number MSV000086359, or they can be downloaded from ftp://massive.ucsd.edu/MSV000086359/. All reagents used or generated and all data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors on reasonable request, see author contributions for contacts for specific datasets. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement Program (CURE – Pennsylvania Department of Health) and the Wistar Science Discovery Fund (F.D.). F.D. was supported by a Wistar Institute recruitment grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. R.S.S. and M.H. were funded by the Adelson Medical Research Foundation and DOD for Hu-mice generation. We thank D. Speicher from the Proteomics Facility at the Wistar Institute, S. Molugu from the Electron Microscopy Resource Laboratory and Y. Velich from the Cell and Developmental Biology Microscopy core at UPenn. Support for the Wistar Institute Proteomics and Metabolomics and Genomics Shared Resources was provided by Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA010815 and National Institutes of Health instrument grant S10 OD023586. We thank M. Groll, E. Oldfield, A. Odom John and C. Morita for advice on the bacterial isoprenoid synthesis pathway, IspH and γδ T cell fields.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

F.D. conceived the study and planned the experiments. M.T. set up the atomic field property of the IspH catalytic site and performed molecular docking experiments. K.S.S., R. Sharma, P.V. and A.S. purified the proteins, performed the biochemical activity assays, bacterial killing experiments, mouse infection studies and contributed to the preparation of the manuscript. P.V. performed flow cytometry and microscopy studies. K.S.S. performed the electron microscopy studies with assistance from the UPenn electron microscopy core. A.R.G. and H.-Y.T. ran the samples for proteomics and small-molecule studies. A.K. and R. Sharma performed the bioinformatics and pathway analysis on proteomics data and helped to illustrate it in a figure. J.C. performed the surface plasmon resonance studies. J.M.S. planned the synthesis of DAIA prodrugs and P.A.N.R. synthesized them. H.C., K.M., R. Somasundaram and M.H. provided Hu-mice. M.G. and M.E.M. performed the seahorse experiments. F.D. and J.M.S. analysed the data. F.D. generated the figures and drafted the manuscript. J.M.S. and P.A.N.R. provided reagents and expertise. All authors provided critical revisions to the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Joseph M. Salvino or Farokh Dotiwala.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature thanks Herman Sintim, Ben Willcox and Gerry Wright for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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This article has been retracted. Please see the retraction notice for more detail:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03961-x

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Purification of recombinant IspH proteins from multiple microbial species and measurement of their biochemical activity by methyl viologen assay.

a, Coomassie-stained gels showing IPTG induction of recombinant 6His-tagged P. falciparum (Pf), E. coli (Ec), P. aeruginosa (Pa) and M. tuberculosis (MTB) IspH. b, Anti-His-tag immunoblots showing the respective purified IspH proteins. Images in a, b are representative of 3 independent purification attempts. c, IspH uses methyl viologen (MV) as an electron donor for the reductive dehydroxylation of HMBPP. Colourless oxidized methyl viologen is restored to its reduced blue form by sodium dithionite. In the absence or inhibition of IspH activity, methyl viologen stays blue. d, e, Methyl viologen assays measuring IspH activity using different concentrations of E. coli IspH at 10 min in the presence of 1 mM HMBPP (d) and different concentrations of HMBPP (e) at 30 min in the presence of 50 nM E. coli IspH. For d, e, data are mean of 3 independent experiments ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, *P < 0.05, ns, not significant; two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test, relative to 0 nM IspH in d or 0 μM HMBPP in e.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 In silico molecular docking with the active pocket of E. coli IspH.

a, Crystal structure of E. coli IspH (PDB: 3KE8)28 (top left) was used to generate the atomic property field (bottom left) and mimic HMBPP interactions in the active binding pocket (right). b, Automated virtual ligand screening (Molsoft) identified 168 out of 9.6 million compounds on the basis of predicted binding at the active site. c, The top 24 compounds were compared with HMBPP visually and on the basis of their predicted number of hydrogen bonds formed, hydrogen-bond energy, Van der Waals interaction energy and other interactions as mentioned. In silico docking for C1–24 is shown in Extended Data Fig. 3a.

Extended Data Fig. 3 In silico molecular docking of compounds C1–24 and their inhibitory activity on E. coli IspH.

a, Chemical structures and in silico docking of the top 24 candidate IspH inhibitors at the E. coli IspH active pocket rendered by Molsoft. Structures are shown in Supplementary Fig. 2a. b, Activity of P. aeruginosa (Pa), M. tuberculosis (MTB) and P. falciparum (Pf) IspH pretreated with DMSO (control), C10, C17 and C23 over time. Data are mean of 4 independent experiments ± s.e.m. ce, Inhibition of E. coli IspH by analogues of C10 (c), C17 (d) or C23 (e). Structures are shown in Supplementary Fig. 2. For analogues with better activity than the parent compound, ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, *P < 0.05; two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test, relative to C23 (n = 8 technical replicates). Data are mean ± s.e.m.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Drug binding assays, structure–activity relationship, testing prodrug potency with different carrier molecules and determining prodrug cleavage and E. coli IspH inhibition by LC–MS.

a, SPR signals (resonance units (RU)) from different concentrations of HMBPP, C23.20 and C23.21 run on E. coli IspH crosslinked NTA chip, plotted against concentrations to calculate K D and R max (the amount of ligand (in RU) to be immobilized) values (n = 3 biological and 2 technical replicates). b, Structure–activity guided analogue design reduced the IC50 values of multiple C23 analogues compared with the parent compound. Structures are shown in Supplementary Fig. 2. c, d, Prodrug ester forms of analogue C23.47 obtained by linking ethanol, TPP or dimethylaminopropanol (synthetic reactions are shown in Supplementary Fig. 3) were tested for E. coli killing by dynamic growth curves (c) and by resazurin blue assay (d). For c, d, n = 3 biological and 8 technical replicates. e, Escherichia coli cells treated with 5 μM C23.28–TPP for 30 min were lysed and the lysates analysed by LC–MS to quantify the relative abundance of C23.28–TPP (prodrug), TPP (carrier molecule) and C23.28 (active drug). Respective molecules were identified by their respective retention times (RT) and mass:charge (m/z) ratios. Area under the respective peaks is measured in arbitrary units (AU) and is directly proportional to the abundance of the molecules. f, Relative abundances of C23.28–TPP (prodrug), TPP (carrier molecule) and C23.28 (active drug) found within E. coli treated with different concentrations (10–5,000 nM) of C23.28–TPP (n = 3 technical and 2 biological replicates). g, Methyl viologen assay performed by treating 1 mM HMBPP with 50 nM E. coli IspH pre-treated with 5 μM C23.28 or TPP for 30 min. Samples analysed by LC–MS to quantify relative conversion of HMBPP (IspH substrate) to DMAPP and IPP (IspH products). Respective molecules were identified by their respective retention times and mass:charge (m/z) ratios. Area under the respective peaks is measured in AU and is directly proportional to the abundance of the molecules. h, Conversion of 1 mM HMBPP (black) to DMAPP and IPP (grey) in 30 min by 50 nM E. coli IspH in the presence of different concentrations (10–5,000 nM) of TPP (dotted lines) or C23.28 (solid lines) (n = 3 technical and 2 biological replicates). For f, h, data are mean of 3 independent experiments ± s.e.m.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 C23 prodrugs specifically act on IspH and kill multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of V. cholerae.

a, Immunoblot shows modulation of IspH levels in CGSC 8074 (E. coli) achieved by altering arabinose levels in culture medium. RpoD, loading control; representative of 3 independent experiments. b, c, Sensitivity of the CGSC 8074 strain to C23.28–TPP decreases with increasing IspH levels, as shown by resazurin blue assay (b) and dynamic growth curves (c). Data are mean of 3 independent experiments ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, *P < 0.05, the remainder are not significant; two-tailed paired Student’s t-test. df, TPP-linked prodrug esters of C23 analogues C23.7, C23.20, C23.21, C23.28 and C23.47 (d) were tested for ability to kill V. cholerae (strain M045) by dynamic growth curves and resazurin blue assay (e; n = 3 biological and 8 technical replicates) or by CFU plating after 24 or 48 h treatment (f; n = 3 biological replicates with 3 serial dilutions). The MIC90 values for prodrug analogues tested on drug-resistant clinical isolates of different pathogenic bacteria are shown in Extended Data Fig. 8a. Data are mean of 3 independent experiments ± s.e.m. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, the remainder are not significant; two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 DAIA prodrugs increase oxidative stress and cause defects in bacterial respiration, membrane integrity and cell-wall architecture.

a, b, Respiratory changes in E. coli treated with TPP or with the indicated concentration of the DAIA prodrug C23.28–TPP were compared by measuring OCR (for aerobic respiration) (a) and ECAR (for glycolysis) (b). ***P < 0.001; two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test, relative to TPP-treated control. c, d, Superoxide (solid line, 2 h after treatment; dotted line, 4 h after treatment) (c) and hydrogen peroxide (d) levels were simultaneously measured by dihydroethidium (DHE) and Amplex red fluorescence respectively. n = 8 biological replicates; data are mean ± s.e.m. e, f, Changes in E. coli membrane integrity, upon TPP or prodrug treatment, measured by Live/Dead (SYTO 9/propidium iodide) assay using flow cytometry (e) or fluorescence microscopy (f). n = 3 biological replicates. Scale bar, 2 μm. g, h, Loss of E. coli membrane potential upon treatment with TPP or prodrug measured by BacLight (DiOC2) assay using flow cytometry (g) or fluorescence microscopy (h). n = 3 biological replicates. Scale bar, 2 μm. i, Scanning electron micrographs (SEM; left) and transmission electron micrographs (TEM; right) compare the morphology of E. coli after 8 h of TPP or prodrug treatment to that of the conditional ispH knockdown E. coli strain CGSC 8074 (ΔispH) kept for 8 h in 1% glucose medium. Red arrows indicate membrane blebbing. j, SEM (top) and TEM (bottom) compare the morphology of V. cholerae after 8 h of TPP or prodrug (C23.28–TPP) treatment. In i, j, images are representative of 20 fields from 3 technical replicates. Scale bar, 400 nm.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 DAIA prodrugs are stable in plasma and liver microsomes, non-toxic to mammalian cells, do not disrupt mitochondrial membrane potential in C2C12 myoblasts and do not disrupt hERG function.

a, b, Nonlinear regression curves for degradation of prodrugs C23.28–TPP and C23.21–TPP and the appearance of the parent drugs C23.28 and C23.21 in the presence of human, pig and mouse plasma (a) or human, monkey and mouse liver microsomes (b). Drug and prodrug concentration measured by LC–MS and normalized on a standard curve. The half-lives (t 1/2) are calculated from respective curves. Data are mean ± s.e.m. of 3 independent experiments. c, d, Cytotoxicity of prodrug analogues on HepG2, RAW264.7 and Vero cells (c) and C2C12 myoblasts (d) measured at 24, 48 and 72 h by LDH release (n = 3 biological and 4 technical replicates). e, Effect of TPP and prodrugs C23.28–TPP and C23.47–TPP on mitochondrial membrane potential of C2C12 myoblasts, measured by tetramethyl rhodamine methyl ester (TMRM) fluorescence. CCCP, positive control (n = 3 biological and 4 technical replicates). f, Toxicity of C23.28–TPP, the carrier (6-hydroxyhexyl)triphenylphosphonium bromide and Me-TPP to hERG channel measured by automated Q patch assay; the normalized current response is plotted using nonlinear regression curves and the IC50 of respective compounds is calculated. Data are mean of 3 independent experiments ± s.e.m. Verapamil was used as the positive control and DMSO as the negative control.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 8 Treating E. coli with an IspH inhibitor prodrug disrupts the levels of IspH and several proteins in essential bacterial metabolic and synthesis pathways.

a, Immunoblots measure relative levels of E. coli IspH at 8 and 24 h after C23.28–TPP treatment or after conditional knockdown in CGSC 8074 (ΔispH) grown on 1% glucose. b, Immunoblots measure relative levels of IspH in clinical isolates of several pathogenic bacteria at 8 and 24 h after C23.28–TPP treatment. For a, b, RpoD immunoblot serves as loading control and the blots are representative of 3 technical replicates. c, Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of 2,346 proteins resolved indicates that the 3 biological replicates for each condition clustered together. A total of 525 proteins were either up- or downregulated both after C23.28–TPP treatment or after conditional knockdown in CGSC 8074 (ΔispH). d, Functions or pathways that are significantly enriched 8 and 24 h after C23.28–TPP treatment. Bars indicate the −log10(P value) with the number of proteins identified in each category next to the respective bar. The bars are colour-coded for the percentage of proteins in the pathway that are up- or downregulated. e, Venn diagram comparing the overlap in downregulated (>2-fold) proteins at 8 or 24 h after C23.28–TPP treatment or after conditional knockdown in CGSC 8074 (ΔispH). f, Proteins important for lipid synthesis, ribosome modification, respiration, cell division, tRNA aminoacylation, DNA/RNA synthesis, DNA repair, amino acid (AA) synthesis and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) cell-wall synthesis pathways are among those significantly downregulated. Associated with Extended Data Fig. 9a. P < 0.05 and FDR < 5%. g, Venn diagram comparing the overlap in upregulated (>2-fold) proteins at 8 or 24 h after C23.28–TPP treatment or after conditional knockdown in CGSC 8074 (ΔispH). h, Ribosome component proteins or proteins important for multidrug efflux and oxidative defence pathways are among those significantly upregulated. Associated with Extended Data Fig. 9b. P < 0.05 and FDR <5%.

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Extended Data Fig. 9 Escherichia coli metabolic pathways up- or downregulated after IspH inhibition.

a, b, Pathway analysis of 323 downregulated (a) (Extended Data Fig. 8e, f) or 60 upregulated (b) (Extended Data Fig. 8g, h) proteins from a proteomic screen comparing ΔispH E. coli and E. coli after C23.28–TPP treatment to untreated wild-type E. coli.

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Extended Data Fig. 10 By dual action, IspH prodrugs expand and activate Vγ9Vδ2 T cells and reduce the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

a, Top, uninfected (UI) human PBMCs or those co-infected with E. coli analysed for expansion of CD3+Vγ9TCR+ (γδ) T cells and compared to untreated (UT) or TPP-, prodrug (C23.07–TPP)- or kanamycin (Kan)-treated PBMCs. Middle, bottom, gated γδ T cell populations analysed for cytotoxic granule proteins granulysin (GNLY) and perforin (middle) or cell surface markers of T cell activation CD69 and HLA-DR (bottom). Representative of 4 independent experiments (4 donors). Percentage of Vγ9+ T cells from CD3+ population and the percentage of Vγ9+ T cells with increased expression of granulysin, perforin, CD69 and HLA-DR were plotted in the respective graphs. Data are mean ± s.e.m. **P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001, the remainder are not significant; one-way ANOVA relative to untreated sample. b, Uninfected human PBMCs or those co-infected with V. cholerae (top) or M. smegmatis (bottom) were analysed for expansion of CD3+Vγ9TCR+ (γδ) T cells and compared to untreated or TPP-, prodrug (C23.07–TPP)- or kanamycin-treated PBMCs (n = 4 biological replicates). Percentage of Vγ9+ T cells from the CD3+ population were plotted in the respective graphs. Data are mean ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001, rest not significant, calculated by one-way ANOVA relative to untreated sample. c, Human PBMCs co-infected with kanamycin-resistant E. coli or V. cholerae can kill neither on their own. Addition of C23.07–TPP kills both V. cholerae and E. coli (n = 2 biological and 3 technical replicates). Data are mean ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001, ns, not significant; unpaired Student’s t-test relative to untreated samples. d, γδ T cell depletion from human PBMCs is verified by treating depleted (γδ) and undepleted human PBMCs treated with 10 μM HMBPP and 50 ng ml−1 IL-15. Representative of 4 independent experiments (4 donors). Percentage of Vγ9+ T cells from the CD3+ population on different days were plotted in the respective graphs. Data are mean ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001 comparing γδ depleted and undepleted PBMCs calculated by unpaired t-test. e, f, Multidrug-resistant clinical isolates of Vibrio (e) and Klebsiella (f) grown for 18 serial passages in media (RPMI+ 10% human serum) containing DAIA prodrug (C23.28–TPP) or conventional antibiotics (hygromycin (Hyg) or streptomycin (Strep)) gradually develop resistance when measured by CFU (top). Similar serial passages in presence of human PBMC inhibit the development of resistance against the DAIA prodrug but not against hygromycin or streptomycin. Passages in γδ depleted (γδ) PBMCs show higher antibiotic resistance against the DAIA prodrug. (n = 3 technical replicates). Data are mean ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001, NS, not significant; unpaired Student’s t-test. g, C57BL/6 mice infected with V. cholerae are treated with TPP or the DAIA prodrug C23.28–TPP and monitored daily from day 2 post-infection for survival (n = 10 mice per group). h, Vibrio load in different organs at the experimental endpoint measured as CFU mg−1 (n = 10 mice with 3 technical replicates), comparing changes in bacterial CFU in C57BL/6b mice after C23.28–TPP treatment. Data are mean ± s.e.m. ***P < 0.001; unpaired Student’s t-test, relative to TPP-treated mice. i, Hu-mice injected i.p. with HMBPP at different concentrations show dose-dependent expansion of γδ T cells but not αβ T cells in blood taken every day for a week (n = 2 mice per group).

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Extended Data Fig. 11 γδ T cells expand in the tissues of prodrug-treated, E. coli-infected humanized mice.

a, Hu-mice infected with E. coli (green) and treated with TPP or the prodrug C23.07–TPP are compared for expansion of Vδ2 TCR+ T cells (red) in multiple organs at day 5 post-infection. DAPI, blue. Scale bar, 100 μm (representative of samples tested from 5–6 Hu-mice). b, Vδ2 antibody validated for immunofluorescence staining of formalin-fixed human PBMCs that are γδ expanded (HMBPP + IL15) or γδ depleted. HepG2 and Vero cells serve as negative controls. c, Anti-E. coli antibody validated for immunofluorescence staining of formalin-fixed HepG2 cells co-infected with E. coli BL21 strain. HepG2 without E. coli serves as a negative control.

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Supplementary information

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Reporting Summary

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This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-5.

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Singh, K.S., Sharma, R., Reddy, P.A.N. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance. Nature 589, 597–602 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03074-x

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