Abstract
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) gyrase is an important enzyme that facilitates the movement of replication and transcription complexes through DNA by creating negative supercoils ahead of the complex. Its presence in Plasmodium falciparum is now established and considered a good drug target since it is absent in the human host. The sequence of P. falciparum gyrase A subunit was analyzed for its messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) folding as well as target accessibility for ribozymes. The four GUC triplet sites identified at 334, 491, 1907, and 2642 nucleotide positions of the Gyrase A mRNA were also accessible to oligos by RNase H assay. Site GUC491 was optimally accessible followed by GUC1907, GUC334, and GUC2642 sites. Ribozymes were produced against all these sites and tested for their in vitro transcript cleavage potentials where RZ491 showed the maximum cleavage rate. Therefore, this ribozyme (RZ491) was chemically synthesized albeit with modifications so as to make it resistant against ribonuclease attack. The modified ribozyme retained its cleavage potential and was able to inhibit the P. falciparum parasite growth up to 49.54% and 74.77% at 20 and 30 μM ribozyme concentrations, respectively, as compared to the untreated culture. However, up to 20% and 24.32% parasite growth inhibition was observed at the same ribozyme concentrations of 20 and 30 μM when compared with control ribozyme-treated cultures. This ribozyme as well as other targets identified here can be investigated further to develop the effective chemotherapeutic agents against malaria.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmed A, Bararia D, Vinayak S, Yameen M, Biswas S, Dev V, Kumar A, Ansari MA, Sharma YD (2004) Plasmodium falciparum isolates in India exhibit a progressive increase in mutations associated with sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine resistance. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 48:879–889
Bennett CF, Cowsert LM (1999) Antisense oligonucleotides as a tool for gene functionalization and target validation. Biochim Biophys Acta 1489:19–30
Beigelman L, Mcswiggen J, Draper K, Gonzalez C, Jensen K, Arpeisky A, Moak A, Matulic-Adamic J, Direnzo A, Haeberli P, Sweedler D, Tracz D, Grimm S, Wincott F, Thackray V, Usman N (1995) Chemical modification of hammerhead ribozymes: activity and nuclease resistance. J Biol Chem 270:25702–25708
Clark DL, Chrisey LA, Campbell JR, Davidson EA (1994) Nonsequence-specific antimalarial activity of oligodeoxynucleotides. Mol Biochem Parasitol 63:129–134
Dan M, Wang AL, Wang CC (2000) Inhibition of pyruvate–ferredoxin oxidoreductase gene expression in Giardia lambia by a virus-mediated hammerhead ribozyme. Mol Microbiol 36:447–456
Ding Y, Lawrence CE (2001) Statistical prediction of single-stranded regions in RNA secondary structure and application to predicting effective antisense target sites and beyond. Nucleic Acids Res 29:1034–1046
Ding Y, Chan CY, Lawrence CE (2004) Sfold web server for statistical folding and rational design of nucleic acids. Nucleic Acids Res 32:W135–W141
Elbashir SM, Harborth J, Lendeckel W, Yalcin A, Weber K, Tuschl T (2001) Duplexes of 21-nucleotide RNAs mediate RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells. Nature 411:494–498
Fichera ME, Roos DS (1997) A plastid organelle as a drug target in apicomplexan parasites. Nature 390:407–409
Flores MV, Atkins D, Stewart TS, Van Aerschot A, Herdewijn P (1999) Antimalarial antisense activity of hexitol nucleic acids. Parasitol Res 85:864–866
Flores MV, Atkins D, Wade D, O'sullivan WJ, Stewart TS (1997) Inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum proliferation in vitro by ribozymes. J Biol Chem 272:16940–16945
Forster AC, Symons RH (1987) Self-cleavage of virusoid RNA is performed by the proposed 55-nucleotide active site. Cell 50:9–16
Foth BJ, Ralph SA, Tonkin CJ, Struck NS, Fraunholz M, Roos DS, Cowman AF Mcfadden GI (2003) Dissecting apicoplast targeting in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Science 299:705–708
Jarvis TC, Wincott FE, Alby LJ, Mcswiggen JA, Beigelman L, Gustofson J, Direnzo A, Levy K, Arthur M, Matulic-Adamic J, Karpeisky A, Gonzalez C, Woolf TM, Usman N, Stinchcomb DT (1996) Optimizing the cell efficacy of synthetic ribozymes. Site selection and chemical modifications of ribozymes targeting the proto-oncogene c-myb. J Biol Chem 271:29107–29112
Jomaa H, Wiesner J, Sanderbrand S, Altincicek B, Weidemeyer C, Hintz M, Turbachova I, Eberl M, Zeidler J, Lichtenthaler HK, Soldati D, Beck E (1999) Inhibitors of the nonmevalonate pathway of isoprenoid biosynthesis as antimalarial drugs. Science 285:1573–1576
Kruger K, Grabowski PJ, Zaug AJ, Sands J, Gottschling DE, Cech TR (1982) Self-splicing RNA: autoexcision and autocyclization of the ribosomal RNA intervening sequence of Tetrahymena. Cell 31:147–157
Lambros C, Vanderberg JP (1979) Synchronization of Plasmodium falciparum erythrocytic stages in culture. J Parasitol 65:418–420
Ludwig J, Blaschke M, Sproat BS (1998) Extending the cleavage rules for the hammerhead ribozyme: mutating adenosine 15.1 to inosine15.1 changes the cleavage site specificity from N16.2U16.1H17 to N16.2C16.1H17. Nucleic Acids Res 26:2279–2285
Muckstein U, Tafer H, Hackermuller J, Bernhart SH, Stadler PF, Hofacker IL (2006) Thermodynamics of RNA–RNA binding. Bioinformatics 22:1177–1182
Perreault JP, Wu TF, Cousineau B, Ogilvie KK, Cedergren R (1990) Mixed deoxyribo- and ribo-oligonucleotides with catalytic activity. Nature 344:565–567
Raghuram EV, Kumar A, Biswas S, Kumar A, Chaubey S, Siddiqi M, Habib S (2007) Nuclear gyrB encodes a functional subunit of the Plasmodium falciparum gyrase that is involved in apicoplast DNA replication. Mol Biochem Parasitol 154:30–39
Sato S, Wilson RJ (2002) The genome of Plasmodium falciparum encodes an active delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase. Curr Genet 40:391–398
Scherr M, Rossi JJ, Sczakiel G, Patzel V (2000) RNA accessibility prediction: a theoretical approach is consistent with experimental studies in cell extracts. Nucleic Acids Res 28:2455–2461
Surolia N, Surolia A (2001) Triclosan offers protection against blood stages of malaria by inhibiting enoyl-ACP reductase of Plasmodium falciparum. Nature Med 7:167–173
Ullu E, Tschudi C, Chakraborty T (2004) RNA interference in protozoan parasites. Cell Microbiol 6:509–519
Vinayak S, Sharma YD (2007) Inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum ispH (lytB) gene expression by hammerhead ribozyme. Oligonucleotides 17:189–200
Wetmur JG, Davidson N (1968) Kinetics of renaturation of DNA. J Mol Biol 31:349–370
Williamson DH, Preiser PR, Moore PW, McCready S, Strath M, Wilson RJ (2002) The plastid DNA of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is replicated by two mechanisms. Mol Microbiol 45:533–542
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Sukla Biswas and Dr. C.R. Pillai for their help in parasite culture. Senior Research Fellowships (to AA) from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is highly acknowledged. We thank Dr. P. K. Yadava for useful discussions regarding RNA folding and ribozyme designing. The Biotechnology Information System (BTIS) facility is gratefully acknowledged.
Funding
Financial supports for the work were granted by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and ICMR, Government of India.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ahmed, A., Sharma, Y.D. Ribozyme cleavage of Plasmodium falciparum gyrase A gene transcript affects the parasite growth. Parasitol Res 103, 751–763 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-008-1036-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-008-1036-y