Characterization of Chemical Interactions between Clinical Drugs and the Oral Bacterium, Corynebacterium matruchotii, via Bioactivity-HiTES

ACS Chem Biol. 2024 Apr 19;19(4):973-980. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.3c00798. Epub 2024 Mar 21.

Abstract

In the field of natural product research, the rediscovery of already-known compounds is one of the significant issues hindering new drug development. Recently, an innovative approach called bioactivity-HiTES has been developed to overcome this limitation, and several new bioactive metabolites have been successfully characterized by this method. In this study, we applied bioactivity-HiTES to Corynebacterium matruchotii, the human oral bacterium, with 3120 clinical drugs as potential elicitors. As a result, we identified two cryptic metabolites, methylindole-3-acetate (MIAA) and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), elicited by imidafenacin, a urinary antispasmodic drug approved by the Japanese Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). MIAA showed weak antibacterial activity against a pulmonary disease-causing Mycobacterium conceptionense with an IC50 value of 185.7 μM. Unexpectedly, we also found that C. matruchotii metabolized fludarabine phosphate, a USFDA-approved anticancer drug, to 2-fluoroadenine which displayed moderate antibacterial activity against both Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli, with IC50 values of 8.9 and 20.1 μM, respectively. Finally, acelarin, a prodrug of the anticancer drug gemcitabine, was found to exhibit unreported antibacterial activity against B. subtilis with an IC50 value of 33.6 μM through the bioactivity-HiTES method as well. These results indicate that bioactivity-HiTES can also be applied to discover biotransformed products in addition to finding cryptic metabolites in microbes.

MeSH terms

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / metabolism
  • Anti-Bacterial Agents / pharmacology
  • Antineoplastic Agents* / metabolism
  • Bacteria / drug effects
  • Bacteria / metabolism
  • Corynebacterium* / drug effects
  • Corynebacterium* / metabolism
  • Humans

Substances

  • Anti-Bacterial Agents
  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • indoleacetic acid
  • imidafenacin

Supplementary concepts

  • Corynebacterium matruchotii