antimicrobial efflux pumps

Efflux pumps are one of the major determinants of multiple drug resistance. In this study, AbeM, a multidrug efflux pump in Acinetobacter baumannii, was cloned into a multicopy plasmid (pUC18) and was transformed into an efflux-deficient mutant of Escherichia coli (KAM32). The elevated resistance profile of the recombinant E. coli for ciprofloxacin was utilised to screen a small-molecule library of 8000 molecules to identify IITR08027, a small molecule that is not inhibitory on its own but that could potentiate the activity of ciprofloxacin. When used in combination against A. baumannii, the molecule improves the killing efficiency of ciprofloxacin, extends its post-antibiotic effect and causes a decrease in frequency of resistant mutant selection with the antibiotic. Quinacrine-based fluorescence quenching and membrane depolarisation assays revealed that IITR08027 functions as a proton gradient inhibitor. This extends the activity of IITR08027 against other H +-driven efflux pumps such as AbeS. MTT assay against HeLa and HEK293 cells suggested that the molecule is non-toxic at its minimum effective concentration. We propose that, in combination with fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin), IITR08027 may be effective against multidrug-resistant A. baumannii expressing AbeM or other efflux pumps that use the proton gradient as an efflux mechanism.

Bacterial pathogens are able to survive within diverse habitats. The dynamic adaptation to the surroundings depends on their ability to sense environmental variations and to respond in an appropriate manner. This involves, among others, the activation of various cell-to-cell communication strategies. The capability of the bacterial cells to rapidly and co-ordinately set up an interplay with the host cells and/or with other bacteria facilitates their survival in the new niche. Efflux pumps are ubiquitous transmembrane transporters, able to extrude a large set of different molecules. They are strongly implicated in antibiotic resistance since they are able to efficiently expel most of the clinically relevant antibiotics from the bacterial cytoplasm. Besides antibiotic resistance, multidrug efflux pumps take part in several important processes of bacterial cell physiology, including cell to cell communication, and contribute to increase the virulence potential of several bacterial path...

Pathogenic microorganisms that are multidrug-resistant can pose severe clinical and public health concerns. In particular, bacterial multidrug efflux transporters of the major facilitator superfamily constitute a notable group of drug resistance mechanisms primarily because multidrug-resistant pathogens can become refractory to antimicrobial agents, thus resulting in potentially untreatable bacterial infections. The major facilitator superfamily is composed of thousands of solute transporters that are related in terms of their phylogenetic relationships, primary amino acid sequences, two- and three-dimensional structures, modes of energization (passive and secondary active), and in their mechanisms of solute and ion translocation across the membrane. The major facilitator superfamily is also composed of numerous families and sub-families of homologous transporters that are conserved across all living taxa, from bacteria to humans. Members of this superfamily share several classes of...

Pathogenic microorganisms that are multidrug-resistant can pose severe clinical and public health concerns. In particular, bacterial multidrug efflux transporters of the major facilitator superfamily constitute a notable group of drug resistance mechanisms primarily because multidrug-resistant pathogens can become refractory to antimicrobial agents, thus resulting in potentially untreatable bacterial infections. The major facilitator superfamily is composed of thousands of solute transporters that are related in terms of their phylogenetic relationships, primary amino acid sequences, two-and three-dimensional structures, modes of energization (passive and secondary active), and in their mechanisms of solute and ion translocation across the membrane. The major facilitator superfamily is also composed of numerous families and sub-families of homologous transporters that are conserved across all living taxa, from bacteria to humans. Members of this superfamily share several classes of ...

Multidrug efflux systems play a prominent role in medicine, as they are important contributors to bacterial antibiotic resistance. NorA is an efflux pump transporter from the major facilitator superfamily that expels numerous drug compounds across the inner membrane of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). The design of novel inhibitors to combat drug efflux could offer new opportunities to avoid the problem of antibiotic resistance. In this study, we performed molecular modeling studies in an effort to discover novel NorA efflux pump inhibitors. A group of over 673 compounds from the PubChem database with a high (>80%) level of similarity to the chemical structure of capsaicin was used to study the binding affinity of small molecule compounds for the NorA efflux pump. Ten potential lead compounds displayed a good druggability profile, with one in particular (CID 44330438) providing new insight into the molecular mechanism of the inhibition of major facilitator superfamily (MFS) eff...

Pathogenic microorganisms that are multidrug-resistant can pose severe clinical and public health concerns. In particular, bacterial multidrug efflux transporters of the major facilitator superfamily constitute a notable group of drug resistance mechanisms primarily because multidrug-resistant pathogens can become refractory to antimicrobial agents, thus resulting in potentially untreatable bacterial infections. The major facilitator superfamily is composed of thousands of solute transporters that are related in terms of their phylogenetic relationships, primary amino acid sequences, two-and three-dimensional structures, modes of energization (passive and secondary active), and in their mechanisms of solute and ion translocation across the membrane. The major facilitator superfamily is also composed of numerous families and sub-families of homologous transporters that are conserved across all living taxa, from bacteria to humans. Members of this superfamily share several classes of highly conserved amino acid sequence motifs that play essential mechanistic roles during transport. The structural and functional importance of multidrug efflux pumps that belong to the major facilitator family and that are harbored by Gram-negative and-positive bacterial pathogens are considered here.

Bacteria are causative agents of human infectious disease and are a serious public health concern due to drug and multi-drug resistance determinants that reduce the clinical efficacy of antimicrobial agents. Among the variety of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, drug and multi-drug efflux pumps represent a significant cause of chemotherapeutic failure in the treatment efforts of bacterial infectious disease. This chapter deals mainly with bacterial drug and multi-drug efflux pump systems of the major facilitator superfamily (MFS) and multi-drug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) family. Studies of these bacterial anti-bacterial drug efflux systems will help our understanding of their molecular mechanisms and may help reduce the conditions that foster multi-drug resistance. Importance of bacterial antimicrobial resistance In human clinical medicine, infectious disease caused by pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria are often treated with chemotherapeutic antimicrobial