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Target validation and ligand development for a pathogenic fungal profilin, using a knock‐down strain of pathogenic yeast Candida glabrata and structure‐based ligand design
Author(s) -
Ueno Keigo,
Tamura Yutaka,
Chibana Hiroji
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
yeast
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.923
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1097-0061
pISSN - 0749-503X
DOI - 10.1002/yea.1759
Subject(s) - profilin , biology , candida glabrata , yeast , mutant , fungal protein , in vitro , microbiology and biotechnology , antifungal , biochemistry , saccharomyces cerevisiae , gene , actin cytoskeleton , cytoskeleton , cell
The emergence of antifungal drug resistance is triggering vigorous searches for novel antifungal targets and lead compounds. In this study, we focused on fungal profilin, which is a small actin control protein sharing limited homology to human profilin. To validate its potentiality as a target, a profilin‐conditional mutant of the pathogenic yeast Candida glabrata was constructed, using a regulatable Tet promoter, and its growth was monitored in vitro. Repression of profilin expression led to severe growth defect, demonstrating the potential of this protein as a novel antifungal target. Next, novel peptides binding to the active interface of profilin were designed by computer simulation. ELISA analysis showed that these peptides did bind to the wild‐type profilin but bound less strongly to a profilin with amino acid substitutions at the active interface. Hence, we show here that profilin is a potential antifungal target and offer novel peptide ligands. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.