Antimicrobial resistance is a global threat to human health. Therefore, efforts have been made to develop new antibacterial agents that address this critical medical issue. Gepotidacin is a novel, bactericidal, first-in-class triazaacenaphthylene antibacterial in clinical development. Recently, phase III clinical trials for gepotidacin treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections caused by uropathogens, including Escherichia coli, were stopped for demonstrated efficacy. Because of the clinical promise of gepotidacin, it is important to understand how the compound interacts with its cellular targets, gyrase and topoisomerase IV, from E. coli. Consequently, we determined how gyrase and topoisomerase IV mutations in amino acid residues that are involved in gepotidacin interactions affect the susceptibility of E. coli cells to the compound and characterized the effects of gepotidacin on the activities of purified wild-type and mutant gyrase and topoisomerase IV. Gepotidacin displayed well-balanced dual-targeting of gyrase and topoisomerase IV in E. coli cells, which was reflected in a similar inhibition of the catalytic activities of these enzymes by the compound. Gepotidacin induced gyrase/topoisomerase IV-mediated single-stranded, but not double-stranded, DNA breaks. Mutations in GyrA and ParC amino acid residues that interact with gepotidacin altered the activity of the compound against the enzymes and, when present in both gyrase and topoisomerase IV, reduced the antibacterial activity of gepotidacin against this mutant strain. Our studies provide insights regarding the well-balanced dual-targeting of gyrase and topoisomerase IV by gepotidacin in E. coli.
Keywords: DNA cleavage; DNA supercoiling/decatenation; gepotidacin; gyrase; topoisomerase IV; triazaacenaphthylene.