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1. A broad analysis of resistance development in the malaria parasite

Author

Victoria C. Corey, Amanda K. Lukens, Eva S. Istvan, Marcus C. S. Lee, Virginia Franco, Pamela Magistrado, Olivia Coburn-Flynn, Tomoyo Sakata-Kato, Olivia Fuchs, Nina F. Gnädig, Greg Goldgof, Maria Linares, Maria G. Gomez-Lorenzo, Cristina De Cózar, Maria Jose Lafuente-Monasterio, Sara Prats, Stephan Meister, Olga Tanaseichuk, Melanie Wree, Yingyao Zhou, Paul A. Willis, Francisco-Javier Gamo, Daniel E. Goldberg, David A. Fidock, Dyann F. Wirth, and Elizabeth A. Winzeler

Subjects
Science
Abstract

It is unclear whether new antimalarial compounds may rapidly lose effectiveness in the field because of parasite resistance. Here, Corey et al.investigate the acquisition of drug resistance and the extent to which common resistance mechanisms decrease susceptibility to a diverse set of 50 antimalarial compounds.

Published
2016
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2. Mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum Cyclic Amine Resistance Locus (PfCARL) Confer Multidrug Resistance

Author

Gregory LaMonte, Michelle Yi-Xiu Lim, Melanie Wree, Christin Reimer, Marie Nachon, Victoria Corey, Peter Gedeck, David Plouffe, Alan Du, Nelissa Figueroa, Bryan Yeung, Pablo Bifani, and Elizabeth A. Winzeler

Subjects
Microbiology, QR1-502
Abstract

ABSTRACT Mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum cyclic amine resistance locus (PfCARL) are associated with parasite resistance to the imidazolopiperazines, a potent class of novel antimalarial compounds that display both prophylactic and transmission-blocking activity, in addition to activity against blood-stage parasites. Here, we show that pfcarl encodes a protein, with a predicted molecular weight of 153 kDa, that localizes to the cis-Golgi apparatus of the parasite in both asexual and sexual blood stages. Utilizing clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-mediated gene introduction of 5 variants (L830V, S1076N/I, V1103L, and I1139K), we demonstrate that mutations in pfcarl are sufficient to generate resistance against the imidazolopiperazines in both asexual and sexual blood-stage parasites. We further determined that the mutant PfCARL protein confers resistance to several structurally unrelated compounds. These data suggest that PfCARL modulates the levels of small-molecule inhibitors that affect Golgi-related processes, such as protein sorting or membrane trafficking, and is therefore an important mechanism of resistance in malaria parasites. IMPORTANCE Several previous in vitro evolution studies have implicated the Plasmodium falciparum cyclic amine resistance locus (PfCARL) as a potential target of imidazolopiperazines, potent antimalarial compounds with broad activity against different parasite life cycle stages. Given that the imidazolopiperazines are currently being tested in clinical trials, understanding their mechanism of resistance and the cellular processes involved will allow more effective clinical usage.

Published
2016
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3. Open Source Drug Discovery with the Malaria Box Compound Collection for Neglected Diseases and Beyond.

Author

Wesley C Van Voorhis, John H Adams, Roberto Adelfio, Vida Ahyong, Myles H Akabas, Pietro Alano, Aintzane Alday, Yesmalie Alemán Resto, Aishah Alsibaee, Ainhoa Alzualde, Katherine T Andrews, Simon V Avery, Vicky M Avery, Lawrence Ayong, Mark Baker, Stephen Baker, Choukri Ben Mamoun, Sangeeta Bhatia, Quentin Bickle, Lotfi Bounaadja, Tana Bowling, Jürgen Bosch, Lauren E Boucher, Fabrice F Boyom, Jose Brea, Marian Brennan, Audrey Burton, Conor R Caffrey, Grazia Camarda, Manuela Carrasquilla, Dee Carter, Maria Belen Cassera, Ken Chih-Chien Cheng, Worathad Chindaudomsate, Anthony Chubb, Beatrice L Colon, Daisy D Colón-López, Yolanda Corbett, Gregory J Crowther, Noemi Cowan, Sarah D'Alessandro, Na Le Dang, Michael Delves, Joseph L DeRisi, Alan Y Du, Sandra Duffy, Shimaa Abd El-Salam El-Sayed, Michael T Ferdig, José A Fernández Robledo, David A Fidock, Isabelle Florent, Patrick V T Fokou, Ani Galstian, Francisco Javier Gamo, Suzanne Gokool, Ben Gold, Todd Golub, Gregory M Goldgof, Rajarshi Guha, W Armand Guiguemde, Nil Gural, R Kiplin Guy, Michael A E Hansen, Kirsten K Hanson, Andrew Hemphill, Rob Hooft van Huijsduijnen, Takaaki Horii, Paul Horrocks, Tyler B Hughes, Christopher Huston, Ikuo Igarashi, Katrin Ingram-Sieber, Maurice A Itoe, Ajit Jadhav, Amornrat Naranuntarat Jensen, Laran T Jensen, Rays H Y Jiang, Annette Kaiser, Jennifer Keiser, Thomas Ketas, Sebastien Kicka, Sunyoung Kim, Kiaran Kirk, Vidya P Kumar, Dennis E Kyle, Maria Jose Lafuente, Scott Landfear, Nathan Lee, Sukjun Lee, Adele M Lehane, Fengwu Li, David Little, Liqiong Liu, Manuel Llinás, Maria I Loza, Aristea Lubar, Leonardo Lucantoni, Isabelle Lucet, Louis Maes, Dalu Mancama, Nuha R Mansour, Sandra March, Sheena McGowan, Iset Medina Vera, Stephan Meister, Luke Mercer, Jordi Mestres, Alvine N Mfopa, Raj N Misra, Seunghyun Moon, John P Moore, Francielly Morais Rodrigues da Costa, Joachim Müller, Arantza Muriana, Stephen Nakazawa Hewitt, Bakela Nare, Carl Nathan, Nathalie Narraidoo, Sujeevi Nawaratna, Kayode K Ojo, Diana Ortiz, Gordana Panic, George Papadatos, Silvia Parapini, Kailash Patra, Ngoc Pham, Sarah Prats, David M Plouffe, Sally-Ann Poulsen, Anupam Pradhan, Celia Quevedo, Ronald J Quinn, Christopher A Rice, Mohamed Abdo Rizk, Andrea Ruecker, Robert St Onge, Rafaela Salgado Ferreira, Jasmeet Samra, Natalie G Robinett, Ulrich Schlecht, Marjorie Schmitt, Filipe Silva Villela, Francesco Silvestrini, Robert Sinden, Dennis A Smith, Thierry Soldati, Andreas Spitzmüller, Serge Maximilian Stamm, David J Sullivan, William Sullivan, Sundari Suresh, Brian M Suzuki, Yo Suzuki, S Joshua Swamidass, Donatella Taramelli, Lauve R Y Tchokouaha, Anjo Theron, David Thomas, Kathryn F Tonissen, Simon Townson, Abhai K Tripathi, Valentin Trofimov, Kenneth O Udenze, Imran Ullah, Cindy Vallieres, Edgar Vigil, Joseph M Vinetz, Phat Voong Vinh, Hoan Vu, Nao-Aki Watanabe, Kate Weatherby, Pamela M White, Andrew F Wilks, Elizabeth A Winzeler, Edward Wojcik, Melanie Wree, Wesley Wu, Naoaki Yokoyama, Paul H A Zollo, Nada Abla, Benjamin Blasco, Jeremy Burrows, Benoît Laleu, Didier Leroy, Thomas Spangenberg, Timothy Wells, and Paul A Willis

Subjects
Immunologic diseases. Allergy, RC581-607, Biology (General), QH301-705.5
Abstract

A major cause of the paucity of new starting points for drug discovery is the lack of interaction between academia and industry. Much of the global resource in biology is present in universities, whereas the focus of medicinal chemistry is still largely within industry. Open source drug discovery, with sharing of information, is clearly a first step towards overcoming this gap. But the interface could especially be bridged through a scale-up of open sharing of physical compounds, which would accelerate the finding of new starting points for drug discovery. The Medicines for Malaria Venture Malaria Box is a collection of over 400 compounds representing families of structures identified in phenotypic screens of pharmaceutical and academic libraries against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite. The set has now been distributed to almost 200 research groups globally in the last two years, with the only stipulation that information from the screens is deposited in the public domain. This paper reports for the first time on 236 screens that have been carried out against the Malaria Box and compares these results with 55 assays that were previously published, in a format that allows a meta-analysis of the combined dataset. The combined biochemical and cellular assays presented here suggest mechanisms of action for 135 (34%) of the compounds active in killing multiple life-cycle stages of the malaria parasite, including asexual blood, liver, gametocyte, gametes and insect ookinete stages. In addition, many compounds demonstrated activity against other pathogens, showing hits in assays with 16 protozoa, 7 helminths, 9 bacterial and mycobacterial species, the dengue fever mosquito vector, and the NCI60 human cancer cell line panel of 60 human tumor cell lines. Toxicological, pharmacokinetic and metabolic properties were collected on all the compounds, assisting in the selection of the most promising candidates for murine proof-of-concept experiments and medicinal chemistry programs. The data for all of these assays are presented and analyzed to show how outstanding leads for many indications can be selected. These results reveal the immense potential for translating the dispersed expertise in biological assays involving human pathogens into drug discovery starting points, by providing open access to new families of molecules, and emphasize how a small additional investment made to help acquire and distribute compounds, and sharing the data, can catalyze drug discovery for dozens of different indications. Another lesson is that when multiple screens from different groups are run on the same library, results can be integrated quickly to select the most valuable starting points for subsequent medicinal chemistry efforts.

Published
2016
Full Text
View/download PDF

4. A broad analysis of resistance development in the malaria parasite

Author

Maria G. Gomez-Lorenzo, Eva S. Istvan, Nina F. Gnädig, Stephan Meister, Olivia Fuchs, Pamela Magistrado, Victoria C. Corey, Cristina de Cozar, Olivia Coburn-Flynn, Dyann F. Wirth, Olga Tanaseichuk, Tomoyo Sakata-Kato, Greg Goldgof, Francisco-Javier Gamo, Daniel E. Goldberg, Sara Prats, Maria Jose Lafuente-Monasterio, Paul Willis, Melanie Wree, Elizabeth A. Winzeler, Virginia Franco, David A. Fidock, Amanda K. Lukens, María Linares, Yingyao Zhou, and Marcus C. S. Lee

Subjects
0301 basic medicine, Drug, media_common.quotation_subject, Science, Plasmodium falciparum, Drug Resistance, General Physics and Astronomy, Drug resistance, Bioinformatics, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Article, 03 medical and health sciences, Antimalarials, Microbial resistance, INDEL Mutation, medicine, Parasite hosting, Animals, Parasites, Allele, media_common, Multidisciplinary, Resistance development, biology, General Chemistry, biology.organism_classification, medicine.disease, Virology, 3. Good health, Clone Cells, 030104 developmental biology, Mutation, Malaria
Abstract

Microbial resistance to chemotherapy has caused countless deaths where malaria is endemic. Chemotherapy may fail either due to pre-existing resistance or evolution of drug-resistant parasites. Here we use a diverse set of antimalarial compounds to investigate the acquisition of drug resistance and the degree of cross-resistance against common resistance alleles. We assess cross-resistance using a set of 15 parasite lines carrying resistance-conferring alleles in pfatp4, cytochrome bc1, pfcarl, pfdhod, pfcrt, pfmdr, pfdhfr, cytoplasmic prolyl t-RNA synthetase or hsp90. Subsequently, we assess whether resistant parasites can be obtained after several rounds of drug selection. Twenty-three of the 48 in vitro selections result in resistant parasites, with time to resistance onset ranging from 15 to 300 days. Our data indicate that pre-existing resistance may not be a major hurdle for novel-target antimalarial candidates, and focusing our attention on fast-killing compounds may result in a slower onset of clinical resistance., It is unclear whether new antimalarial compounds may rapidly lose effectiveness in the field because of parasite resistance. Here, Corey et al. investigate the acquisition of drug resistance and the extent to which common resistance mechanisms decrease susceptibility to a diverse set of 50 antimalarial compounds.

Published
2016

5. Mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum Cyclic Amine Resistance Locus (PfCARL) Confer Multidrug Resistance

Author

Michelle Yi-Xiu Lim, Bryan K. S. Yeung, Marie Nachon, Pablo Bifani, Victoria C. Corey, Christin Reimer, Alan Du, Gregory LaMonte, David Plouffe, Nelissa Figueroa, Melanie Wree, Elizabeth A. Winzeler, and Peter Gedeck

Subjects
0301 basic medicine, 030106 microbiology, Mutant, Plasmodium falciparum, Protozoan Proteins, Locus (genetics), Drug resistance, medicine.disease_cause, Microbiology, 03 medical and health sciences, Antimalarials, Virology, Protein targeting, medicine, CRISPR, Gene, Genetics, Recombination, Genetic, biology, biology.organism_classification, QR1-502, Drug Resistance, Multiple, 3. Good health, Multiple drug resistance, 030104 developmental biology, Genetic Loci, Mutation, Research Article
Abstract

Mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum cyclic amine resistance locus (PfCARL) are associated with parasite resistance to the imidazolopiperazines, a potent class of novel antimalarial compounds that display both prophylactic and transmission-blocking activity, in addition to activity against blood-stage parasites. Here, we show that pfcarl encodes a protein, with a predicted molecular weight of 153 kDa, that localizes to the cis-Golgi apparatus of the parasite in both asexual and sexual blood stages. Utilizing clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-mediated gene introduction of 5 variants (L830V, S1076N/I, V1103L, and I1139K), we demonstrate that mutations in pfcarl are sufficient to generate resistance against the imidazolopiperazines in both asexual and sexual blood-stage parasites. We further determined that the mutant PfCARL protein confers resistance to several structurally unrelated compounds. These data suggest that PfCARL modulates the levels of small-molecule inhibitors that affect Golgi-related processes, such as protein sorting or membrane trafficking, and is therefore an important mechanism of resistance in malaria parasites., IMPORTANCE Several previous in vitro evolution studies have implicated the Plasmodium falciparum cyclic amine resistance locus (PfCARL) as a potential target of imidazolopiperazines, potent antimalarial compounds with broad activity against different parasite life cycle stages. Given that the imidazolopiperazines are currently being tested in clinical trials, understanding their mechanism of resistance and the cellular processes involved will allow more effective clinical usage.

Published
2016

6. Open Source Drug Discovery with the Malaria Box Compound Collection for Neglected Diseases and Beyond

Author

Christopher D. Huston, Amornrat Naranuntarat Jensen, Louis Maes, Jordi Mestres, Nao Aki Watanabe, Michael Adsetts Edberg Hansen, Roberto Adelfio, Simon Townson, Didier Leroy, Kate Weatherby, Thomas Spangenberg, Manuela Carrasquilla, Kailash P. Patra, Robert E. Sinden, José Brea, Abhai K. Tripathi, W. Armand Guiguemde, Alan Y. Du, Melanie Wree, Katherine T. Andrews, Kirsten K. Hanson, Tyler B. Hughes, Sundari Suresh, Adele M. Lehane, Sangeeta N. Bhatia, Edward J. Wojcik, Andrew Hemphill, Francielly Morais Rodrigues da Costa, Worathad Chindaudomsate, Joseph M. Vinetz, Ben Gold, Sunyoung Kim, Edgar Vigil, Nuha R. Mansour, Mohamed Abdo Rizk, Patrick Valere Tsouh Fokou, Audrey Burton, Laran T. Jensen, David A. Fidock, Aishah Alsibaee, Filipe Silva Villela, Yesmalie Alemán Resto, Rajarshi Guha, Conor R. Caffrey, José A. Fernández Robledo, Thomas J. Ketas, Luke Mercer, Rob Hooft van Huijsduijnen, Maria Jose Lafuente, Wesley C. Van Voorhis, Lauve R. Y. Tchokouaha, Dee A. Carter, Anjo Theron, Benoît Laleu, Kiaran Kirk, Maurice A. Itoe, Robert P. St.Onge, Celia Quevedo, Andrea Ruecker, Paul Henri Amvam Zollo, Francisco-Javier Gamo, Nathan Lee, Alvine Ngoutane Mfopa, Paul Horrocks, Ikuo Igarashi, Nil Gural, Todd R. Golub, Gordana Panic, Jeremy N. Burrows, Phat Voong Vinh, Annette Kaiser, Fabrice Fekam Boyom, Pietro Alano, Anupam Pradhan, Sandra Duffy, Raj N. Misra, Vidya Prasanna Kumar, Aintzane Alday, Timothy N. C. Wells, María Isabel Loza, Sébastien Kicka, William J. Sullivan, Gregory M. Goldgof, Yo Suzuki, Yolanda Corbett, Sally-Ann Poulsen, Vida Ahyong, George Papadatos, Sujeevi Nawaratna, Rafaela Salgado Ferreira, Takaaki Horii, Imran Ullah, Nathalie Narraidoo, Natalie G. Robinett, Simon V. Avery, Grazia Camarda, Iset Medina Vera, Michael T. Ferdig, Fengwu Li, David Plouffe, Joseph L. DeRisi, Jasmeet Samra, Andreas Spitzmüller, Liqiong Liu, Christopher A. Rice, Thierry Soldati, Serge Maximilian Stamm, Suzanne Gokool, Beatrice L. Colon, Shimaa Abd El-Salam El-Sayed, Mark Baker, Kenneth O. Udenze, Na Le Dang, Katrin Ingram-Sieber, Dennis A. Smith, Rays H. Y. Jiang, Marian P. Brennan, Ani Galstian, Paul Willis, Dennis E. Kyle, Ainhoa Alzualde, Sarah Prats, Sheena McGowan, Vicky M. Avery, Jennifer Keiser, John P. Moore, Dalu Mancama, Gregory J. Crowther, Noemi Cowan, Maria B. Cassera, Valentin Trofimov, David Thomas, David J. Sullivan, Diana Ortiz, Nada Abla, S. Joshua Swamidass, Benjamin Blasco, Hoan Vu, Francesco Silvestrini, Anthony J. Chubb, Pamela M. White, Scott M. Landfear, Isabelle Florent, John H. Adams, Ronald J. Quinn, Andrew F. Wilks, Sandra March, Leonardo Lucantoni, Stephen Baker, Tana Bowling, Joachim Müller, Arantza Muriana, Lauren E. Boucher, Ajit Jadhav, Sukjun Lee, Elizabeth A. Winzeler, Choukri Ben Mamoun, Ulrich Schlecht, Daisy D. Colón-López, Marjorie Schmitt, Myles H. Akabas, Isabelle S Lucet, Stephen N. Hewitt, Naoaki Yokoyama, Carl Nathan, Bakela Nare, Cindy Vallières, Lotfi Bounaadja, Kayode K. Ojo, Wesley Wu, Ken Chih-Chien Cheng, Kathryn F. Tonissen, Michael J. Delves, Brian M. Suzuki, Aristea Lubar, Quentin D. Bickle, Stephan Meister, Silvia Parapini, Manuel Llinás, Ngoc Minh Pham, Seunghyun Moon, R. Kiplin Guy, Donatella Taramelli, Lawrence Ayong, Sarah D'Alessandro, Jürgen Bosch, David Little, Istituto Superiore di Sanita [Rome], Zentrum für Infektiologie [Heidelberg, Germany], Universität Heidelberg [Heidelberg]-Heidelberg University Hospital [Heidelberg], University of Nottingham, UK (UON), Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery, Griffith University [Brisbane], Institut Pasteur Korea - Institut Pasteur de Corée, Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP), Oxford University Clinical Research Unit [Ho Chi Minh City] (OUCRU), Laboratoire de génétique moléculaire et cellulaire, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA), Faculté des Sciences - Yaoundé I, Université de Yaoundé I, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences [San Diego], University of California [San Diego] (UC San Diego), University of California-University of California, Dipartimento di Scienze Farmacologiche e Biomolecolari (DiSFeB), Università degli Studi di Milano [Milano] (UNIMI), Imperial College London, Eck Institute for Global Health, University of Notre Dame [Indiana] (UND), Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), Columbia University [New York], Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Centre (iNANO), Institute of Parasitology, University of Bern, MS Project - Initiation (MSPRI), Apollo SSC Genève, Keele University, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute [Basel], University of Regina, School of Engineering and Science, University of the West of Scotland (UWS), Research School of Biology [Canberra, Australie], Australian National University (ANU), University of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia], Laboratory of Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene [Antwerpen] (LMPH), University of Antwerp (UA), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic, Institute for Wine Biotechnology [University of Stellenbosch - Afrique du Sud], Stellenbosch University, Oregon Health and Science University [Portland] (OHSU), Biozentrum, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics [Lausanne] (SIB), Université de Lausanne (UNIL)-Université de Lausanne (UNIL), Laboratoire d'innovation moléculaire et applications (LIMA), Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut de Chimie du CNRS (INC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Advanced Materials Research Laboratories, Department of Chemistry and Center for Optical ((COMSET), Clemson University, Université de Genève (UNIGE), Department of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, University of California [Santa Cruz] (UCSC), Department of sanità pubblica-microbiologia-virologia, University of California, Département Réseaux, Information, Multimédia (RIM-ENSMSE), École des Mines de Saint-Étienne (Mines Saint-Étienne MSE), Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] (IMT)-Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris] (IMT)-Centre G2I, UC San Diego School of Medicine, Medicines for Malaria Venture [Geneva] (MMV), Princeton University, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Bhatia, Sangeeta N, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Biochemistry, Center for Drug Discovery, Kicka, Sébastien, Soldati, Thierry, Trofimov, Valentin, and Abla, Nada

Subjects
0301 basic medicine, Plasmodium, [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio], Medizin, Drug Evaluation, Preclinical, Datasets as Topic, infected erythrocytes, stage plasmodium-falciparum, Q1, Gametocytes, Toxicology, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Drug Metabolism, 1108 Medical Microbiology, Animal Cells, inhibitors, Drug Discovery, Medicine and Health Sciences, Biology (General), Genetics, Protozoans, biology, 630 Agriculture, Drug discovery, transmission, Malarial Parasites, Neglected Diseases, 3. Good health, Chemistry, 1107 Immunology, ddc:540, Physical Sciences, 590 Animals (Zoology), Identification (biology), Cellular Types, Medicaments, 0605 Microbiology, Research Article, Drug Research and Development, QH301-705.5, Immunology, Computational biology, in-vitro, Microbiology, target, Small Molecule Libraries, 03 medical and health sciences, Antimalarials, blood, Virology, Parasite Groups, Gametocyte, medicine, Parasitic Diseases, [CHIM]Chemical Sciences, Humans, Pharmacokinetics, Molecular Biology, Biology, theileria parasites, Pharmacology, Toxicity, QH, Malària -- Medicaments, Organisms, Biology and Life Sciences, Plasmodium falciparum, Cell Biology, RC581-607, biology.organism_classification, medicine.disease, Tropical Diseases, Parasitic Protozoans, babesia, Malaria, 030104 developmental biology, Germ Cells, Vector (epidemiology), identification, 570 Life sciences, Parasitology, Human medicine, Medicinal Chemistry, Immunologic diseases. Allergy, Apicomplexa
Abstract

A major cause of the paucity of new starting points for drug discovery is the lack of interaction between academia and industry. Much of the global resource in biology is present in universities, whereas the focus of medicinal chemistry is still largely within industry. Open source drug discovery, with sharing of information, is clearly a first step towards overcoming this gap. But the interface could especially be bridged through a scale-up of open sharing of physical compounds, which would accelerate the finding of new starting points for drug discovery. The Medicines for Malaria Venture Malaria Box is a collection of over 400 compounds representing families of structures identified in phenotypic screens of pharmaceutical and academic libraries against the Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite. The set has now been distributed to almost 200 research groups globally in the last two years, with the only stipulation that information from the screens is deposited in the public domain. This paper reports for the first time on 236 screens that have been carried out against the Malaria Box and compares these results with 55 assays that were previously published, in a format that allows a meta-analysis of the combined dataset. The combined biochemical and cellular assays presented here suggest mechanisms of action for 135 (34%) of the compounds active in killing multiple life-cycle stages of the malaria parasite, including asexual blood, liver, gametocyte, gametes and insect ookinete stages. In addition, many compounds demonstrated activity against other pathogens, showing hits in assays with 16 protozoa, 7 helminths, 9 bacterial and mycobacterial species, the dengue fever mosquito vector, and the NCI60 human cancer cell line panel of 60 human tumor cell lines. Toxicological, pharmacokinetic and metabolic properties were collected on all the compounds, assisting in the selection of the most promising candidates for murine proof-of-concept experiments and medicinal chemistry programs. The data for all of these assays are presented and analyzed to show how outstanding leads for many indications can be selected. These results reveal the immense potential for translating the dispersed expertise in biological assays involving human pathogens into drug discovery starting points, by providing open access to new families of molecules, and emphasize how a small additional investment made to help acquire and distribute compounds, and sharing the data, can catalyze drug discovery for dozens of different indications. Another lesson is that when multiple screens from different groups are run on the same library, results can be integrated quickly to select the most valuable starting points for subsequent medicinal chemistry efforts., Author Summary Malaria leads to the loss of over 440,000 lives annually; accelerating research to discover new candidate drugs is a priority. Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) has distilled over 25,000 compounds that kill malaria parasites in vitro into a group of 400 representative compounds, called the "Malaria Box". These Malaria Box sets were distributed free-of-charge to research laboratories in 30 different countries that work on a wide variety of pathogens. Fifty-five groups compiled >290 assay results for this paper describing the many activities of the Malaria Box compounds. The collective results suggest a potential mechanism of action for over 130 compounds against malaria and illuminate the most promising compounds for further malaria drug development research. Excitingly some of these compounds also showed outstanding activity against other disease agents including fungi, bacteria, other single-cellular parasites, worms, and even human cancer cells. The results have ignited over 30 drug development programs for a variety of diseases. This open access effort was so successful that MMV has begun to distribute another set of compounds with initial activity against a wider range of infectious agents that are of public health concern, called the Pathogen Box, available now to scientific labs all over the world (www.PathogenBox.org).

Published
2016
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