Development of a genetic tool for functional screening of anti-malarial bioactive extracts in metagenomic libraries
Mongui, Álvaro (CorpoGen (Bogotá))
Pérez Llanos, Francy J. (CorpoGen (Bogotá))
Yamamoto, Marcio M. (Universidade de São Paulo)
Lozano, Marcela (CorpoGen (Bogotá))
Zambrano, Maria M. (CorpoGen (Bogotá))
Portillo, Patricia del (CorpoGen (Bogotá))
Fernández Becerra, Carmen (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
Restrepo, Silvia (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
Portillo Obando, Hernando A. del (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats)
Junca, Howard (CorpoGen (Bogotá))

Date:	2015
Abstract:	BACKGROUND: The chemical treatment of Plasmodium falciparum for human infections is losing efficacy each year due to the rise of resistance. One possible strategy to find novel anti-malarial drugs is to access the largest reservoir of genomic biodiversity source on earth present in metagenomes of environmental microbial communities. METHODS: A bioluminescent P. falciparum parasite was used to quickly detect shifts in viability of microcultures grown in 96-well plates. A synthetic gene encoding the Dermaseptin 4 peptide was designed and cloned under tight transcriptional control in a large metagenomic insert context (30 kb) to serve as proof-of-principle for the screening platform. RESULTS: Decrease in parasite viability consistently correlated with bioluminescence emitted from parasite microcultures, after their exposure to bacterial extracts containing a plasmid or fosmid engineered to encode the Dermaseptin 4 anti-malarial peptide. Here, a new technical platform to access the anti-malarial potential in microbial environmental metagenomes has been developed.
Grants:	European Commission KBBE/2009
Note:	Ajuts: Departamento Administrativo de Ciencias, Tecnología e Innovación (Colciencias), República de Colombia; Convocatoria 489 - 2009, Código 657048925406, Contrato de financiación RC. 427 - 2009 Colciencias - CorpoGen; Programa de Asistencias Graduadas de Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia; i Programa Jóvenes Investigadores de Colciencias
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Malaria ; Metagenomics ; Functional screening ; Anti-malarial drugs ; Synthetic gene design ; Dermaseptin 4 ; Bioluminescent Plasmodium falciparum
Published in:	Malaria journal, Vol. 14 Núm. 233 (June 2015) , ISSN 1475-2875

DOI: 10.1186/s12936-015-0748-6
PMID: 26040274

6 p, 665.3 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Institut d'Investigació en Ciencies de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol (IGTP)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles