SummaryTuberculosis continues to be a global health threat, making bicyclic nitroimidazoles an important new class of therapeutics. A deazaflavin-dependent nitroreductase (Ddn) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis catalyzes the reduction of nitroimidazoles such as PA-824, resulting in intracellular release of lethal reactive nitrogen species. The N-terminal 30 residues of Ddn are functionally important but are flexible or access multiple conformations, preventing structural characterization of the full-length, enzymatically active enzyme. Several structures were determined of a truncated, inactive Ddn protein core with and without bound F420 deazaflavin coenzyme as well as of a catalytically competent homolog from Nocardia farcinica. Mutagenesis studies based on these structures identified residues important for binding of F420 and PA-824. The proposed orientation of the tail of PA-824 toward the N terminus of Ddn is consistent with current structure-activity relationship data.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an aerobic bacterium that persists intracellularly in host macrophages and has evolved diverse mechanisms to combat and survive oxidative stress. Here we show a novel F420-dependent anti-oxidant mechanism that protects Mtb against oxidative stress. Inactivation of the fbiC gene in Mtb results in a cofactor F420-deficient mutant that is hypersensitive to oxidative stress and exhibits a reduction in NADH/NAD+ ratios upon treatment with menadione. In agreement with the recent hypothesis on oxidative stress being an important component of the pathway resulting in cell death by bactericidal agents, F420− mutants are hypersensitive to mycobactericidal agents such as isoniazid, moxifloxacin and clofazimine that elevate oxidative stress. The Mtb deazaflavin-dependent nitroreductase (Ddn) and its two homologues Rv1261c and Rv1558 encode for an F420H2-dependent quinone reductase (Fqr) function leading to dihydroquinones. We hypothesize that Fqr proteins catalyse an F420H2-specific obligate two-electron reduction of endogenous quinones, thereby competing with the one-electron reduction pathway and preventing the formation of harmful cytotoxic semiquinones, thus protecting mycobacteria against oxidative stress and bactericidal agents. These findings open up an avenue for the inhibition of the F420 biosynthesis pathway or Fqr-class proteins as a mechanism to potentiate the action of bactericidal agents.

The bicyclic 4-nitroimidazoles PA-824 and OPC-67683 represent a promising novel class of therapeutics for tuberculosis (TB) and are currently in phase II clinical development. Both compounds are pro-drugs that are reductively activated by a deazaflavin (F420) dependent nitroreductase (Ddn). Herein we describe the biochemical properties of Ddn including the optimal enzymatic turnover conditions, cofactor and substrate specificity. The preference of the enzyme for the (S) isomer of PA-824 over the (R) isomer is directed by the presence of a long hydrophobic tail. For nitroimidazo-oxazoles bearing only short alkyl substituents on the C-7 position of the oxazole, substrates were reduced by Ddn without stereochemical preference. However, with bulkier substitutions on the tail of the oxazole, Ddn displayed stereo-specificity. Ddn mediated metabolism of PA-824 results in the release of reactive nitrogen species. We have employed a direct chemiluminescence based nitric oxide (NO) detection assay to measure the kinetics of NO production by Ddn. Binding affinity of PA-824 to Ddn was monitored through intrinsic fluorescence quenching of the protein facilitating a turn-over independent assessment of affinity. Using this assay we found that (R)-PA-824, despite not being turned over by Ddn, binds to the enzyme with the same affinity as the active (S) isomer. This result, in combination with docking studies in the active site, suggests that the (R) isomer likely has a different binding mode than the (S) with the C-3 of the imidazole ring orienting in a non-productive position with respect to the incoming hydride from F420. The results presented provide insight into the biochemical mechanism of reduction and elucidate structural features important for understanding substrate binding.

The original article unfortunately has an author error in the units for k cat and k cat /K m on page 108. In Table 2, row 2, all k cat and k cat /K m units should be ''min À1 '' and ''min À1 mM À1 ,'' respectively, rather than be ''s À1 '' and ''s À1 mM À1 .'' The scientific interpretations remain the same, only the units change. Our conclusions about the active site structure based on the kinetic analysis of the mutants do not change.