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Babesia microti, the main pathogen causing human babesiosis, has been reported to exhibit resistance to the traditional treatment of azithromycin + atovaquone and clindamycin + quinine, suggesting the necessity of developing new drugs. The methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway, a unique pathway in apicomplexan parasites, was shown to play a crucial function in the growth of Plasmodium falciparum. In the MEP pathway, 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) is a rate-limiting enzyme and fosmidomycin (FSM) is a reported inhibitor for this enzyme. DXR has been shown as an antimalarial drug target, but no report is available on B. microti DXR (BmDXR). Here BmDXR was cloned, sequenced, analyzed by bioinformatics, and evaluated as a potential drug target for inhibiting the growth of B. micorti in vitro. Drug assay was performed by adding different concentrations of FSM in B. microti in vitro culture. Rescue experiment was done by supplementing 200 μM isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) or 5 μM geranylgeraniol (GG-ol) in the culture medium together with 5 μM FSM or 10 μM diminazene aceturate. The results indicated that FSM can inhibit the growth of B. microti in in vitro culture with an IC50 of 4.63 ± 0.12 μM, and growth can be restored by both IPP and GG-ol. Additionally, FSM is shown to inhibit the growth of parasites by suppressing the DXR activity, which agreed with the reported results of other apicomplexan parasites. Our results suggest the potential of DXR as a drug target for controlling B. microti and that FSM can inhibit the growth of B. microti in vitro.

The methylerythritol phosphate pathway to isoprenoids, an alternate biosynthetic route present in many bacteria, algae, plants, and the malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum, has become an attractive target for the development of new antimalarial and antibacterial compounds. The second enzyme in this pathway, 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR; EC 1.1.1.267), has been shown to be the molecular target for fosmidomycin, a promising antimalarial drug. This enzyme converts 1-deoxy-d-xylulose 5-phosphate (DXP) into the branched compound 2-C-methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP). The transformation of DXP into MEP requires an isomerization, followed by a NADPH-dependent reduction. The discovery of DXR, its subsequent characterization, and the identification of inhibitors will be presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Babesia microti , the main pathogen causing human babesiosis, has been reported to exhibit resistance to the traditional treatment of azithromycin + atovaquone and clindamycin + quinine, suggesting the necessity of developing new drugs. The methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway, a unique pathway in apicomplexan parasites, was shown to play a crucial function in the growth of Plasmodium falciparum . In the MEP pathway, 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) is a rate-limiting enzyme and fosmidomycin (FSM) is a reported inhibitor for this enzyme. DXR has been shown as an antimalarial drug target, but no report is available on B. microti DXR (BmDXR). Here BmDXR was cloned, sequenced, analyzed by bioinformatics, and evaluated as a potential drug target for inhibiting the growth of B. micorti in vitro . Drug assay was performed by adding different concentrations of FSM in B. microti in vitro culture. Rescue experiment was done by supplementing 200 μM isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) or 5 μM geranylgeraniol (GG-ol) in the culture medium together with 5 μM FSM or 10 μM diminazene aceturate. The results indicated that FSM can inhibit the growth of B. microti in in vitro culture with an IC50 of 4.63 ± 0.12 μM, and growth can be restored by both IPP and GG-ol. Additionally, FSM is shown to inhibit the growth of parasites by suppressing the DXR activity, which agreed with the reported results of other apicomplexan parasites. Our results suggest the potential of DXR as a drug target for controlling B. microti and that FSM can inhibit the growth of B. microti in vitro ., (Copyright © 2020 Wang, Li, Luo, Yu, Nie, Liu, An, Ao, Liu, Chen, Tian, Zhao and He.)

Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo (Orchidaceae) is a traditional Chinese medicinal plant. The stem contains an alkaloid that is the primary bioactive component. However, the details of alkaloid biosynthesis have not been effectively explored because of the limited number of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) available in GenBank. In this study, we analyzed RNA isolated from the stem of D. officinale using a single half-run on the Roche 454 GS FLX Titanium platform to generate 553,084 ESTs with an average length of 417 bases. The ESTs were assembled into 36,407 unique putative transcripts. A total of 69.97% of the unique sequences were annotated, and a detailed view of alkaloid biosynthesis was obtained. Functional assignment based on Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) terms revealed 69 unique sequences representing 25 genes involved in alkaloid backbone biosynthesis. A series of qRT-PCR experiments confirmed that the expression levels of 5 key enzyme-encoding genes involved in alkaloid biosynthesis are greater in the leaves of D. officinale than in the stems. Cytochrome P450s, aminotransferases, methyltransferases, multidrug resistance protein (MDR) transporters and transcription factors were screened for possible involvement in alkaloid biosynthesis. Furthermore, a total of 1061 simple sequence repeat motifs (SSR) were detected from 36,407 unigenes. Dinucleotide repeats were the most abundant repeat type. Of these, 179 genes were associated with a metabolic pathway in KEGG. This study is the first to produce a large volume of transcriptome data from D. officinale. It extends the foundation to facilitate gene discovery in D. officinale and provides an important resource for the molecular genetic and functional genomic studies in this species., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)