Article
Dichloroacetate and pyruvate metabolism: pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases as targets worth investigating for effective therapy of toxoplasmosis.
Registro en:
FERRARINI, Mariana Galvão. et al. Dichloroacetate and pyruvate metabolism: pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases as targets worth investigating for effective therapy of toxoplasmosis. Msphere, v.6, n. 1, p. 1–20, 2021.
2379-5042
10.1128/mSphere.01002-20
Autor
Ferrarini, Mariana Galvão
Nisimura, Lindice Mitie
Girard, Richard Marcel Bruno Moreira
Alencar, Mayke Bezerra
Fragoso, Mariana Sayuri Ishikawa
Araújo-Silva, Carlla Assis
Veiga, Alan de Almeida
Abud, Ana Paula Ressetti
Nardelli, Sheila Cristina
Vommaro, Rossiane C.
Silber, Ariel Mariano
France-Sagot, Marie
Ávila, Andréa Rodrigues
Resumen
Toxoplasmosis, a protozoan infection caused by Toxoplasma gondii, is estimated to affect around 2.5 billion people worldwide. Nevertheless, the side effects of drugs combined with the long period of therapy usually result in discontinuation of the treatment. New therapies should be developed by exploring peculiarities of the parasite’s metabolic pathways, similarly to what has been well described in cancer cell metabolism. An example is the switch in the metabolism of cancer that blocks the conversion of pyruvate into acetyl coenzyme A in mitochondria. In this context, dichloroacetate (DCA) is an anticancer drug that reverts the tumor proliferation by inhibiting the enzymes responsible for this switch: the pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases (PDKs). DCA has also been used in the treatment of certain symptoms of malaria; however, there is no evidence of how this drug affects apicomplexan species. In this paper, we studied the metabolism of T. gondii and demonstrate that DCA also inhibits T. gondii’s in vitro infection with no toxic effects on host cells. DCA caused an increase in the activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase followed by an unbalanced mitochondrial activity. We also observed morphological alterations frequently in mitochondria and in a few apicoplasts, essential organelles for parasite survival. To date, the kinases that potentially regulate the activity of pyruvate metabolism in both organelles have never been described. Here, we confirmed the presence in the genome of two putative kinases (T. gondii PDK [TgPDK] and T. gondii branched-chain a-keto acid dehydrogenase kinase [TgBCKDK]), verified their
cellular localization in the mitochondrion, and provided in silico data suggesting that they are potential targets of DCA. 2021