Projects per year
Abstract
There is a pressing need for new medicines to prevent and treat malaria. Most antimalarial drug discovery is reliant upon phenotypic screening. However, with the development of improved target validation strategies, target-focused approaches are now being utilized. Here, we describe the development of a toolkit to support the therapeutic exploitation of a promising target, lysyl tRNA synthetase (PfKRS). The toolkit includes resistant mutants to probe resistance mechanisms and on-target engagement for specific chemotypes; a hybrid KRS protein capable of producing crystals suitable for ligand soaking, thus providing high-resolution structural information to guide compound optimization; chemical probes to facilitate pulldown studies aimed at revealing the full range of specifically interacting proteins and thermal proteome profiling (TPP); as well as streamlined isothermal TPP methods to provide unbiased confirmation of on-target engagement within a biologically relevant milieu. This combination of tools and methodologies acts as a template for the development of future target-enabling packages.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1962-1974 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | ACS Infectious Diseases |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 9 |
Early online date | 29 Aug 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 9 Sept 2022 |
Keywords
- Plasmodium
- lysyl tRNA synthetase
- thermal proteome profiling (TPP)
- isothermal TPP
- chemical pulldown
- anti-malarial drug discover
- antimalarial drug discovery
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Infectious Diseases
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A Platform for Drug Target Deconvolution and Exploitation
Gilbert, I. (Investigator), Horn, D. (Investigator), Pawlowic, M. C. (Investigator), Wyatt, P. (Investigator) & Wyllie, S. (Investigator)
31/12/20 → 30/03/25
Project: Research
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Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research
Cook, S. (Investigator), De Rycker, M. (Investigator), Fairlamb, A. (Investigator), Ferguson, M. (Investigator), Field, M. (Investigator), Gilbert, I. (Investigator), Gray, D. (Investigator), Horn, D. (Investigator), Pawlowic, M. C. (Investigator), Read, K. (Investigator), Wyatt, P. (Investigator) & Wyllie, S. (Investigator)
1/04/17 → 31/03/25
Project: Research
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Structure-Guided Drug Discovery for Malaria and Tuberculosis (joint with Structural Genomics Consortium)
Gilbert, I. (Investigator), Gray, D. (Investigator), Read, K. (Investigator) & Wyatt, P. (Investigator)
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
1/01/19 → 6/07/24
Project: Research