Express??o e purifica????o do alvo molecular Rim8 visando o desenvolvimento de novas drogas antif??ngicas

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, Lucas Luiz
• Orientador(a): Felipe, Maria Sueli Soares
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Cat??lica de Bras??lia
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa Strictu Sensu em Ci??ncias Gen??micas e Biotecnologia
• Departamento: Escola de Sa??de e Medicina
• País: Brasil
• Palavras-chave em Português: Micoses sist??micas; Drogas antif??ngicas; Paracoccidioides spp; Alvo molecular Rim8; Produ????o de prote??nas recombinantes
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CIENCIAS DA SAUDE
• Resumo em Inglês: Invasive fungal infections are a major public health problem in the world, since they increase morbidity and patients??? hospitalization time. In Brazil, the highest mortality rate among the systemic mycoses is caused by an endemic disease named paracoccidioimycosis, which the etiologic agent is the dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides spp. The worldwide increased resistance to the commercially available antifungal agents, their limited spectrum of activity against some fungal pathogens and concerns with their toxic side effects are reasonable evidence of the necessity of novel therapeutic strategies, especially the development of new antifungal agents. Thus, the essential gene rim8 was identified by comparative genomics as an orthologous sequence in the genome of human pathogenic fungi absent in the human genome. In filamentous fungi and yeasts, gene expression regulation by the ambient pH involves components of a signaling pathway that mediate proteolytic activation of the transcription factor PacC/Rim101 in response to alkaline environmental pH. The rim8 gene in yeasts, also called palF in filamentous fungi, performs an essential step in this signaling pathway. It is important for host-pathogen interaction, leading to increased virulence and pathogen survival. Thus, Rim8 is a very interesting and promising drug target. The aim of this work is to optimize heterologous expression and purification of Rim8 protein from P. luzii to further perform its structural and functional characterization and also, to use it as a molecular target for drugs development. The rim8 gene was chemically synthesized with a histidine tag and cloned into a pET-21a vector. Heterologous expression of the gene was made using two strains of E. coli, obtaining the best conditions using LB medium with 0.5% glucose at 30 ??C for 2 hours and 0.25 mM IPTG and adding protease inhibitor cocktail. The Rim8 heterologous protein was purified using a nickel affinity chromatography column. Expression and purification results were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and in some cases, confirmed by western blot. Immunization of BALB/c mice was performed with the purified protein to obtain anti- Rim8 antibodies. The antibody production was confirmed by ELISA test. The protein immunocitolocalization in P. lutzii cells showed a difuse protein-plasma membrane association at acidic pH. At neutral pH the fluorescence pattern is showed as localized foci in plasma membrane and later, with extracellular alcalinization, it migrates into the cytosol. Thus, it can be inferred that this work gives some contribution to the development of new antifungal drugs, but still must undergo further production steps, proteolysis reduction and protein purification to allow structural and functional characterization of Rim8.
• Link de acesso: https://bdtd.ucb.br:8443/jspui/handle/tede/2259

Invasive fungal infections are a major public health problem in the world, since they increase morbidity and patients??? hospitalization time. In Brazil, the highest mortality rate among the systemic mycoses is caused by an endemic disease named paracoccidioimycosis, which the etiologic agent is the dimorphic fungus Paracoccidioides spp. The worldwide increased resistance to the commercially available antifungal agents, their limited spectrum of activity against some fungal pathogens and concerns with their toxic side effects are reasonable evidence of the necessity of novel therapeutic strategies, especially the development of new antifungal agents. Thus, the essential gene rim8 was identified by comparative genomics as an orthologous sequence in the genome of human pathogenic fungi absent in the human genome. In filamentous fungi and yeasts, gene expression regulation by the ambient pH involves components of a signaling pathway that mediate proteolytic activation of the transcription factor PacC/Rim101 in response to alkaline environmental pH. The rim8 gene in yeasts, also called palF in filamentous fungi, performs an essential step in this signaling pathway. It is important for host-pathogen interaction, leading to increased virulence and pathogen survival. Thus, Rim8 is a very interesting and promising drug target. The aim of this work is to optimize heterologous expression and purification of Rim8 protein from P. luzii to further perform its structural and functional characterization and also, to use it as a molecular target for drugs development. The rim8 gene was chemically synthesized with a histidine tag and cloned into a pET-21a vector. Heterologous expression of the gene was made using two strains of E. coli, obtaining the best conditions using LB medium with 0.5% glucose at 30 ??C for 2 hours and 0.25 mM IPTG and adding protease inhibitor cocktail. The Rim8 heterologous protein was purified using a nickel affinity chromatography column. Expression and purification results were analyzed by SDS-PAGE and in some cases, confirmed by western blot. Immunization of BALB/c mice was performed with the purified protein to obtain anti- Rim8 antibodies. The antibody production was confirmed by ELISA test. The protein immunocitolocalization in P. lutzii cells showed a difuse protein-plasma membrane association at acidic pH. At neutral pH the fluorescence pattern is showed as localized foci in plasma membrane and later, with extracellular alcalinization, it migrates into the cytosol. Thus, it can be inferred that this work gives some contribution to the development of new antifungal drugs, but still must undergo further production steps, proteolysis reduction and protein purification to allow structural and functional characterization of Rim8.