NEWS
Merulinic acid C enhances gentamycin antibiotic activity
In a collaborative article with the group of Dr. Andréa Dessen (Bacterial Pathogenesis Group, Institut de Biologie Structurale, Grenoble, France) and researchers from the CNPEM (Campinas, Brazil) Phytobios (São Paulo, Brazil), UNIFESP (Brazil), UFSCar (Brazil) and UNICAMP (Brazil), we described earlier this year the antibiotic activity of merulinic acid C and other anacardic acids, isolated from the mushroom Aurantiopileus mayanensis (Ginns, D.L. Lindner & T.J. Baroni, 2011, Meruliaceae).
Aurantiopileus mayanensis. T. J. Baroni 10228. Basidiomata, in situ. (Ginns, J., Lindner, D.L., Baronia, T.J., & Ryvarden, L. Aurantiopileus mayanensis a new genus and species of polypore (Polyporales, Basidiomycota) from Belize with connections to existing Asian species. North American Fungi, 2010, 5, 1-10).
Merulinic acid C is an anacardic acid, a well-known class of natural products, first isolated from the cashew nut, Anacardium occidentale. Merulinic acid C was isolated along with several additional anacardic acid derivatives from the mushroom. These compounds have double bonds in different positions of a side chain. It was thus necessary to unambiguously establish the position of the unsaturations. A procedure was developed using derivatization with dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), followed by GC–MS analysis. This information was confronted with UPLC-qTOF-MS/MS analysis of the same compounds. In this way, we developed a fragmentation method to establish the position of double bonds in unsaturated chains with no need of derivatization. This method was established by Juliano Slivinski, Vitor Freire, Ariane Bertonha and Laura Ióca at the QOSBio group, São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
Merulinic acid C was identified as the most active anacardic acid derivative obtained against antibiotic-resistant enterococci, among a series of additional anacardic acids, also isolated by researchers at LNBio, CNPEM, from A. occidentale. Fluorescence microscopy analyses showed that merulinic acid C targets the bacterial membrane without affecting the peptidoglycan and causes rapid cellular ATP leakage from cells. Merulinic acid C was shown to act synergistically with gentamicin against Enterococcus faecium. Read here the article “Merulinic acid C overcomes gentamicin resistance in Enterococcus faecium“.
Mirelle Takaki’s PhD in Chemistry, at Instituto de Química de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo
Last Thursday, April 17th, Mirelle Takaki presented and defended her PhD thesis. It was a virtual defense, because of the current restrictions of social contact. The PhD committee was composed by Professors Camila M. Crnkovic (Universidade de São Paulo), Mario Palma (Universidade Estadual Paulista “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, campus Rio Claro), Edson Rodrigues Filho (Universidade Federal de São Carlos) and Moacir Rossi Forim (Universidade Federal de São Carlos), and included myself.
It was an excellent opportunity to discuss Mirelle’s project and results. The expertise of the committee’s members was very important to address many aspects of Mirelle’s work. It was a great time of science discussion – Mirelle and I thank very much for the Professors’ willingness and time to read and evaluate Mirelle’s PhD work.
Mirelle’s first project focused on developing methods to investigate and better understand the role of fungal secondary metabolites in promoting phytopathogenicity. Her approach was largely based on metabolomics, but also on modern isolation and identification tools such as HPLC-SPE-NMR. Results from this project are really interesting and need final experiments to be completed. This project was developed in collaboration with Professor Roger Linington, at the Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, where Mirelle did work during one year.
A second project was also developed by Mirelle, on predatory-prey relationships of marine invertebrates. Mirelle’s approach to this problem was also based on metabolomics, but also on isolation/identification and total synthesis, in collaboration with Professor Sarpong’s group at the University of California, Berkeley. Some final results also need to be obtained in order to close this second project.
We hope to submit Mirelle’s manuscripts for publication soon.
Brazilian research to fight the SARS-Cov-2 pandemia
The SARS-Cov-2 pandemia mobilized several research teams in Brazil. The São Paulo state funding agency, FAPESP, is continuously updating the Brazilian scientific research task force towards the better understanding the virus and the search for medical treatments. During the last weeks, several news appeared in the Agência FAPESP News. Selected topics are the following.
Scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2 (yellow), isolated from a patient, emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab (image: NIAD / HIH)
New coronavirus is produced in Brazilian laboratory
Strategy pursued in developing Ebola vaccine could be used to produce COVID-19 vaccine
In animal testing, experimental Ebola vaccine based on platform developed by US pharmaceutical company in partnership with Brazilian researchers conferred immunity against hemorrhagic virus with single dose (image: Wikimedia Commons).
FAPESP will fund research to combat COVID-19
Researchers, small businesses and startups will receive BRL 30 million for projects to develop diagnostic kits, therapies and therapeutic procedures, ventilators, personal protective equipment for health workers and solutions for health services, among others (image: TPHeinz / Pixabay).
Brazilian scientists are developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus
Using a novel technological platform, researchers at the University of São Paulo plan to produce a candidate vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 for testing in animals in the next few months (image representing a VLP conjugated with an antigen / adapted from an illustration to an article published by the research group in the journal Vaccines in July 2019).
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