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Searching for potent and specific antibiotics against pathogenic Helicobacter and Campylobacter strains

  • Natural Products - Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology

Abstract

Menaquinone is an obligatory component of the electron-transfer pathway in microorganisms. Its biosynthetic pathway was established by pioneering studies with Escherichia coli and it was revealed to be derived from chorismate by Men enzymes. However, we identified an alternative pathway, the futalosine pathway, operating in some microorganisms including Helicobacter pylori and Campylobacter jejuni, which cause gastric carcinoma and diarrhea, respectively. Because some useful intestinal bacteria, such as lactobacilli, use the canonical pathway, the futalosine pathway is an attractive target for development of chemotherapeutics for the abovementioned pathogens. In this mini-review, we summarize compounds that inhibit Mqn enzymes involved in the futalosine pathway discovered to date.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas from MEXT, Japan (JSPS KAKENHI Grant number 16H06452) and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from JSPS (18H03937) to T.D. We thank Robbie Lewis, MSc, from Edanz Group (http://www.edanzediting.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, N13 & W8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628, Japan

    Yasushi Ogasawara & Tohru Dairi

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  1. Yasushi Ogasawara
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  2. Tohru Dairi
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Correspondence to Yasushi Ogasawara or Tohru Dairi.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article is part of the Special Issue “Natural Product Discovery and Development in the Genomic Era 2019”.

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Ogasawara, Y., Dairi, T. Searching for potent and specific antibiotics against pathogenic Helicobacter and Campylobacter strains. J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol 46, 409–414 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2108-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2108-3

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