I Adding Insult to Injury
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Adding insult to injury: mechanistic basis for how AmpC mutations allow Pseudomonas aeruginosa to accelerate cephalosporin hydrolysis and evade avibactam by Cole Lee Slater A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Department of Microbiology University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Copyright © 2020 Cole Lee Slater i Abstract Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a leading cause of nosocomial infections worldwide and notorious for its broad-spectrum resistance to antibiotics. A key mechanism that confers extensive resistance to β-lactam antibiotics is the inducible expression of AmpC, a highly efficient Ambler class C β-lactamase enzyme. Unfortunately, several P. aeruginosa clinical isolates expressing mutated forms of AmpC have been found to be clinically resistant to the novel antipseudomonal β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor (BLI) combinations ceftolozane/tazobactam and ceftazidime/avibactam. The objective of this thesis was to investigate the enzymatic activity of four of these reported AmpC mutants, E247K, G183D, T96I, and ∆G229–E247 (alongside wild-type (WT) AmpC from P. aeruginosa PAO1), to gain detailed insights into how these mutations circumvent these clinically vital antibiotic/inhibitor combinations. The effect of these mutations on the catalytic cycle of AmpC was found to be two- fold. First, they reduced the stability of the enzyme, which presumably increased its flexibility. This appeared to accelerate deacylation of the enzyme-bound β-lactam, which resulted in greater catalytic efficiencies towards ceftolozane and ceftazidime. Second, these mutations reduced the affinity of avibactam for AmpC by increasing the apparent activation energy barrier of the enzyme acylation step. The catalytic turnover of ceftolozane and ceftazidime was not influenced by this significantly, as deacylation was found to be the rate-limiting step for the breakdown of these antibiotics. It is remarkable that these mutations enhance the catalytic efficiency of AmpC towards ceftolozane and ceftazidime while simultaneously reducing susceptibility to inhibition by avibactam. It is our hope that the knowledge gained from the molecular analysis of these and other AmpC resistance mutants will aid the design of β-lactams and BLIs with reduced susceptibility to mutational resistance. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Brian Mark, for conceptualizing this intriguing research project and allowing me the opportunity to challenge it. His guidance and unwavering support throughout these past two years aided my academic success and development as a researcher. I would also like to thank the members of my advisory committee, Dr. Ayush Kumar and Dr. Frank Schweizer, for their frequent encouragement and valuable insight, as well as the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) for providing the financial support that made this research possible. I want to extend my sincerest gratitude towards Dr. Judith Winogrodzki for all the time and energy she spent towards formally training and educating me in molecular biology, enzyme kinetics, and protein crystallography. Her knowledge of and dedication to scientific research helped shape this project into what it is today. I am incredibly grateful for her guidance. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Mazdak Khajehpour for offering his expertise and extensive knowledge in enzymology, as it helped me tremendously with both the analysis and interpretation of the overwhelming amounts of kinetic data collected for this project. I am also thankful for all the members of the Mark lab, who continue to provide a safe, friendly, and positive work environment. The same can be said for the rest of the students and faculty members within the Department of Microbiology, including the helpful support staff. Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my family: mom, dad, Brennan, and Emily. Their unconditional love, support, and patience has helped me more than they will ever know. I wholeheartedly dedicate this thesis to them. iii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ viii List of Acronyms .......................................................................................................................... x 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Antibiotics: discovery and development of resistance ............................................... 1 1.2. Pseudomonas aeruginosa ........................................................................................... 2 1.3. β-lactam antibiotics ..................................................................................................... 2 1.3.1. Mechanism of action of β-lactam antibiotics ............................................... 2 1.3.2. Classification of β-lactam antibiotics .......................................................... 6 1.4. Resistance to β-lactam antibiotics ............................................................................. 10 1.5. β-lactamases .............................................................................................................. 11 1.5.1. Catalytic mechanism of β-lactamases ........................................................ 11 1.5.2. Classification of β-lactamases ................................................................... 14 1.6. AmpC β-lactamases .................................................................................................. 15 1.6.1. Overview .................................................................................................... 15 1.6.2. Regulation of AmpC expression ................................................................ 16 1.7. β-lactamase inhibitors ............................................................................................... 19 1.7.1. Mechanism of action of β-lactamase inhibitors ......................................... 19 iv 1.7.2. Classification of β-lactamase inhibitors ..................................................... 20 1.8. Research Premise ...................................................................................................... 25 1.9. Research Objectives .................................................................................................. 27 2. Materials and Methods .......................................................................................................... 28 2.1. Preparation of WT and mutant AmpC expression constructs ................................... 28 2.2. Expression and purification of WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ............................. 30 2.3. Kinetic characterization of WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ................................... 32 2.3.1. Michaelis–Menten kinetic analysis of WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ... 33 2.3.2. Avibactam inhibition assays ...................................................................... 34 2.3.3. Tazobactam inhibition assays .................................................................... 36 2.4. Melting temperature determination .......................................................................... 36 3. Results ..................................................................................................................................... 37 3.1. Expression and purification of WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ............................. 37 3.1.1. WT and mutant AmpC enzymes are stably expressed as soluble monomers ............................................................................................................. 37 3.2. Hydrolysis of ceftolozane and ceftazidime by WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ..... 40 3.2.1. WT AmpC displays a modest difference in its specificity towards ceftolozane and ceftazidime, with a slight preference for ceftazidime ................ 40 3.2.2. AmpC mutants exhibit increased catalytic efficiency towards ceftolozane and ceftazidime compared to WT AmpC ............................................................ 44 3.3. Hydrolysis of nitrocefin by WT and mutant AmpC enzymes .................................. 48 3.3.1. AmpC mutants exhibit decreased catalytic efficiency towards nitrocefin compared to WT AmpC ....................................................................................... 48 v 3.4. Inhibition of WT and mutant AmpC enzymes by avibactam and tazobactam ......... 51 3.4.1. AmpC mutants demonstrate reduced susceptibility to inhibition by avibactam ............................................................................................................. 51 3.4.2. Tazobactam inhibitory potency does not differ appreciably between the WT and mutant AmpC enzymes ...................................................................