c Mycobacteria contain genes for several DNA-dependent RNA primases, including dnaG, which encodes an essential replication enzyme that has been proposed as a target for antituberculosis compounds. An in silico analysis revealed that mycobacteria also possess archaeo-eukaryotic superfamily primases (AEPs) of unknown function. Using a homologous recombination system, we obtained direct evidence that wild-type dnaG cannot be deleted from the chromosome of Mycobacterium smegmatis without disrupting viability, even in backgrounds in which mycobacterial AEPs are overexpressed. In contrast, single-deletion AEP mutants or mutants defective for all four identified M. smegmatis AEP genes did not exhibit growth defects under standard laboratory conditions. Deletion of native dnaG in M. smegmatis was tolerated only after the integration of an extra intact copy of the M. smegmatis or Mycobacterium tuberculosis dnaG gene, under the control of chemically inducible promoters, into the attB site of the chromosome. M. tuberculosis and M. smegmatis DnaG proteins were overproduced and purified, and their primase activities were confirmed using radioactive RNA synthesis assays. The enzymes appeared to be sensitive to known inhibitors (suramin and doxorubicin) of DnaG. Notably, M. smegmatis bacilli appeared to be sensitive to doxorubicin and resistant to suramin. The growth and survival of conditional mutant mycobacterial strains in which DnaG was significantly depleted were only slightly affected under standard laboratory conditions. Thus, although DnaG is essential for mycobacterial viability, only low levels of protein are required for growth. This suggests that very efficient inhibition of enzyme activity would be required for mycobacterial DnaG to be useful as an antibiotic target. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a deadly pathogen that claims nearly 2 million lives annually and infects an estimated 2 billion people, who serve as a reservoir of latently infected individuals (1). Most tuberculosis (TB) cases are not the result of new infections but are caused by the reactivation of dormant M. tuberculosis (2). TB caused by drug-sensitive strains is fully treatable, but patients must take three or four drugs for approximately Ն6 months. Premature termination of drug therapy results in the emergence of resistant strains. The World Health Organization estimates that 50 million individuals harbor multidrug-resistant (MDR) M. tuberculosis, which is resistant to at least rifampin and isoniazid. Treating these MDR strains requires second-line drugs, which are expensive, have side effects, and take longer to work (up to 2 years). More disturbing is that strains of untreatable extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB, which are additionally resistant to any fluoroquinolone and at least one of three injectable secondline drugs (capreomycin, kanamycin, or amikacin), have already been identified in 58 countries. This XDR form, together with totally drug-resistant (TDR) TB, seems to represent the greatest health threat (3). The options for treating ...

FLAP proved highly discriminating, sensitive and specific and could be a valuable molecular tool, especially for analysing a limited number of M. tuberculosis strains.

The use of the MM2QM tool in a combined docking + molecular dynamics (MD) + molecular mechanics (MM) + quantum mechanical (QM) binding affinity prediction study is presented, and the tool itself is discussed. The system of interest is Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) pantothenate synthetase in complexes with three highly similar sulfonamide inhibitors, for which crystal structures are available. Starting from the structure of MTB pantothenate synthetase in the "open" conformation and following the combined docking + MD + MM + QM procedure, we were able to capture the closing of the enzyme binding pocket and to reproduce the position of the ligands with an average root mean square deviation of 1.6 Å. Protein-ligand interaction energies were reproduced with an average error lower than 10%. The discussion on the MD part and a protein flexibility importance is carried out. The presented approach may be useful especially for finding analog inhibitors or improving drug candidates.

The DNA ligases, enzymes that seal breaks in the backbones of DNA, are essential for all organisms, however bacterial ligases essential for DNA replication use β-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide as their co-factor, whereas those that are essential in eukaryotes and viruses use adenosine-5′-triphosphate. This fact leads to the conclusion that NAD+-dependent DNA ligases in bacteria could be targeted by their co-factor specific inhibitors. The development of novel alternative medical strategies, including new drugs, are a top priority focus areas for tuberculosis research due to an increase in the number of multi-drug resistant as well as totally drug resistant tubercle bacilli strains. Here, through the use of a virtual high-throughput screen and manual inspection of the top 200 records, 23 compounds were selected for in vitro studies. The selected compounds were evaluated in respect to their Mycobacterium tuberculosis NAD+ DNA ligase inhibitory effect by a newly developed assay based on Genetic Analyzer 3500 Sequencer. The most effective agents (e.g., pinafide, mitonafide) inhibited the activity of M. tuberculosis NAD+-dependent DNA ligase A at concentrations of 50 µM. At the same time, the ATP-dependent (phage) DNA LigT4 was unaffected by the agents at concentrations up to 2 mM. The selected compounds appeared to also be active against actively growing tubercle bacilli in concentrations as low as 15 µM.