Catestatin, an Endogenous Chromogranin A-Derived Peptide, Inhibits in Vitro Growth of Plasmodium Falciparum
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Cell. Mol. Life Sci. (2010) 67:1005–1015 DOI 10.1007/s00018-009-0235-8 Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences RESEARCH ARTICLE Catestatin, an endogenous Chromogranin A-derived peptide, inhibits in vitro growth of Plasmodium falciparum Aziza Akaddar • Ce´cile Doderer-Lang • Melissa R. Marzahn • Franc¸ois Delalande • Marc Mousli • Karen Helle • Alain Van Dorsselaer • Dominique Aunis • Ben M. Dunn • Marie-He´le`ne Metz-Boutigue • Ermanno Candolfi Received: 18 September 2009 / Revised: 3 December 2009 / Accepted: 11 December 2009 / Published online: 31 December 2009 Ó The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Catestatin, an endogenous peptide derived from P. falciparum 3D7, exhibiting 88% inhibition at 20 lM. bovine chromogranin A, and its active domain cateslytin A similar partial inhibition of parasite growth was observed display powerful antimicrobial activities. We have tested for the chloroquine-resistant strain, 7G8 (64%,) and the the activities of catestatin and other related peptides on the multidrug-resistant strain, W2 (62%). In the presence of growth of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. Catestatin parasite-specific lactate dehydrogenase, a specific protein– inhibits growth of the chloroquine-sensitive strain of protein interaction between catestatin and plasmepsin II precursor was demonstrated. In addition, catestatin par- tially inhibited the parasite-specific proteases plasmepsin in M.-H. Metz-Boutigue and E. Candolfi contributed equally to this vitro. A specific interaction between catestatin and work. plasmepsins II and IV from P. falciparum and plasmepsin Electronic supplementary material The online version of this IV from the three remaining species of Plasmodium known article (doi:10.1007/s00018-009-0235-8) contains supplementary to infect man was observed, suggesting a catestatin- material, which is available to authorized users. induced reduction in availability of nutrients for protein A. Akaddar Á C. Doderer-Lang Á M. Mousli Á E. Candolfi (&) synthesis in the parasite. Institut de Parasitologie et de Pathologie Tropicale, Universite´ de Strasbourg, EA 4438, 67000 Strasbourg, France Keywords Plasmodium falciparum Á e-mail: candolfi@unistra.fr Antimicrobial peptide Á Catestatin Á Cateslytin Á M. R. Marzahn Á B. M. Dunn Chromogranin A Á Plasmepsins II and IV Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Florida College of Medicine, 100245 Gainesville, FL, USA Introduction F. Delalande De´veloppement et Physiopathologie de l’Intestin et du Pancre´as, A series of antimicrobial peptides were derived from the Universite´ de Strasbourg, INSERM U682, processing of the adrenomedullary chromogranins A and B 67200 Strasbourg, France (CgA and CgB), proenkephalin-A, and ubiquitin, all K. Helle co-stored and co-secreted with catecholamines upon stim- Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen, ulation of the chromaffin cells [1–7]. Eight pairs of dibasic Bergen, Norway residues in bovine CgA correspond to major sites for processing in the intragranular matrix [8] to generate sev- A. Van Dorsselaer Laboratoire de spectrome´trie de masse BioOrganique, eral bioactive peptides [9], among them a 21-residue-long IPHC-DSA, UDS, CNRS, UMR178, 67087 Strasbourg, France cationic peptide (net charge ?5) named catestatin (bovine CgA344–364, bCts). This peptide was initially character- D. Aunis Á M.-H. Metz-Boutigue ized for its inhibitory effect on catecholamine secretion Physiopathologie du Syste`me Nerveux, Universite´ de Strasbourg, INSERM U575, from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla [10, 11], and 67084 Strasbourg, France was identified as a product from stimulated chromaffin 1006 A. Akaddar et al. cells [12]. The sequence of Cts is highly conserved in reaction simulations, and microscopic calculations of mammals (Table 1)[13–19], and cateslytin (bovine binding free energies [32]. Malaria parasites, both in cul- CgA344–358, CTL) corresponds to the antimicrobial ture and in animal models, are killed by inhibitors of active domain [2]. The antibacterial potency of the CTL plasmepsins, establishing proof of concept that these pro- domain has been confirmed in studies of Cts as an anti- teases are important as drug targets [33], especially when bacterial agent in human skin [20]. A role for these combined with the inhibition of falcipains that are also antimicrobial CgA peptides in innate immunity was dem- involved in haemoglobin degradation [32]. Previous stud- onstrated by their presence in secretions of stimulated ies have indicated that several peptidomimetics inhibitors, polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) [2] and by the fact obtained from combinatorial chemistry based peptides that Cts activates neutrophils by inducing calcium entry libraries, have a high inhibitory effect on various plasm- [21]. epsins [34]. Because some of these inhibitors show Malaria is endemic in about 100 developing countries sequence similarities with Cts, we investigated the effect of and over 3 billion people live under the threat of malaria Cts on Plasmodium growth. infection. Malaria causes over 1 million deaths each year, The aim of the present study was to probe Cts and CTL most of whom are children [22, 23]. The most recent for their antimalarial activities. Our results show that Cts estimates indicate that there are more than 500 million inhibits growth of several strains of P. falciparum, not only clinical cases of malaria annually on the planet, a number the chloroquine-sensitive strain 3D7 but also the chloro- that nearly doubles previous estimates [24, 25], and the quine-resistant (7G8) and the multidrug-resistant (W2) disability adjusted life years (DALYs) of malaria are esti- strains. The structural parameters crucial for the antima- mated at 45 million [23]. Furthermore, drug resistance of larial potency have been identified, as well as a potential P. falciparum has emerged in all classes of antimalarial plasmodial target protein within the plasmepsin family [35]. drugs [26, 27], and increased efforts in antimalarial drug discovery are urgently needed [28, 29]. Because some antiplasmodial agents are host cytotoxic molecules [30], Materials and methods natural non-toxic peptides might represent a new approach for malaria drug research. Synthetic peptides Plasmepsins are aspartic proteases involved in the deg- radation of the host cell haemoglobin, providing nutrients The synthetic peptides were prepared with an Applied for parasite growth [31] and other as yet unidentified Biosystems 433 A synthesizer (Foster City, USA), using functions. Novel and potent inhibitors of Plasmodium the stepwise solid-phase method with 9-fluoromethoxy- plasmepsins were identified by using an automated proce- carbonyl (Fmoc chemistry) [2, 36]. As a negative control, dure to post-process the results of a large docking screen of we used the inactive scrambled Cts breaking the putative commercially available compounds. Efforts to design new secondary structure (SLPRRQLPSSAGMRGGKFAYF). inhibitors against malarial plasmepsins have employed a For fluorescence studies, rhodaminated peptides were range of computational tools in the design process, obtained as previously reported [6]. Synthetic peptides including homology modeling, automated docking, enzyme were finally purified by HPLC on C18 reverse-phase Table 1 Alignment of Cts from Sequence Ref. different species and sequence Similarity similarity (%) (%) hCGA352-372 SSMKLSFRARAYGFRGPG P Q L 100 [13] bCGA344-364 RSMRLS FRARGYGFRGPGLQL 90 [14] mCGA364-384 R SMKLSFRTRAYGFRDPGPQL 86 [15] rCGA367-387 R SMKLSFRARAYGFRDPGP Q L 95 [16] eCGA361-381 R SMKLSFRARAYGFRGPGLQL 90 [17] pCGA343-363 RSM KLSFRAPAYGFRGPGLQL 86 [18] Homolog residues are in white letter by comparison with fCGA318-335 RSMKIPT K DQK Y ---EPASEE 38 [19] human Cts h human, b bovine, m mouse, Consensus RSMKL SFRARAYGFR PG QL [13] r rat, e equine, p pig, f frog, sequence R I K G A – deletion Antimalarial activity of Catestatin 1007 columns and lyophylized. Purity of the synthetic peptides experiments, parasitemia was determined by light micro- ([98%) was established by HPLC and MALDI-TOF mass scope (9100), counting the proportion of parasitized red spectrometry, and the concentration was evaluated by blood cells (RBCs) in about 20 fields of thin blood films automatic Edman sequencing [2] after correction with the prepared from culture. Mean and standard deviation were Edman degradation yield. calculated from three different experiments, each being evaluated by three different readers [28]. In parallel, Study of peptide activity on P. falciparum strains Plasmodium-derived lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH), a in vitro parasite-specific intracellular metabolic enzyme, was measured in whole blood in the absence or presence of We have used three P. falciparum strains with different peptides, using a commercial ELISA kit (DiaMed ELISA origin and chemo-sensitivities: an African strain sensitive Malaria Antigen test; Cressier sur Morat, Switzerland) to chloroquine (3D7), a Brazilian strain resistant to chlo- according to the manufacturer’s recommendations [41]. roquine (7G8), and a South-East Asian strain resistant to Each peptide was incubated in MCM at 20 lM for 48 h chloroquine, quinine, and halofantrine (W2), kindly pro- before analysis by pLDH-ELISA. The pLDH test was used vided by Prof. S. Picot (EA 3732 Parasitologie, Mycologie to determine the 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50). The Me´dicale et Pathologie Exotique, Faculte´ de Me´decine, IC50 was estimated by linear regression analysis (standard Universite´