Coupling chemical mutagenesis to next generation sequencing for the identification of drug resistance mutations in Leishmania

Current genome-wide screens allow system-wide study of drug resistance but detecting small nucleotide variants (SNVs) is challenging. Here, we use chemical mutagenesis, drug selection and next generation sequencing to characterize miltefosine and paromomycin resistant clones of the parasite Leishmania. We highlight several genes involved in drug resistance by sequencing the genomes of 41 resistant clones and by concentrating on recurrent SNVs. We associate genes linked to lipid metabolism or to ribosome/translation functions with miltefosine or paromomycin resistance, respectively. We prove by allelic replacement and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing that the essential protein kinase CDPK1 is crucial for paromomycin resistance. We have linked CDPK1 in translation by functional interactome analysis, and provide evidence that CDPK1 contributes to antimonial resistance in the parasite. This screen is powerful in exploring networks of drug resistance in an organism with diploid to mosaic aneuploid genome, hence widening the scope of its applicability.

A Novel Insertion Mutation in Streptomyces coelicolor Ribosomal S12 Protein Results in Paromomycin Resistance and Antibiotic Overproduction

ABSTRACT We identified a novel paromomycin resistance-associated mutation in rpsL, caused by the insertion of a glycine residue at position 92, in Streptomyces coelicolor ribosomal protein S12. This insertion mutation (GI92) resulted in a 20-fold increase in the paromomycin resistance level. In combination with another S12 mutation, K88E, the GI92 mutation markedly enhanced the production of the blue-colored polyketide antibiotic actinorhodin and the red-colored antibiotic undecylprodigiosin. The gene replacement experiments demonstrated that the K88E-GI92 double mutation in the rpsL gene was responsible for the marked enhancement of antibiotic production observed. Ribosomes with the K88E-GI92 double mutation were characterized by error restrictiveness (i.e., hyperaccuracy). Using a cell-free translation system, we found that mutant ribosomes harboring the K88E-GI92 double mutation but not ribosomes harboring the GI92 mutation alone displayed sixfold greater translation activity relative to that of the wild-type ribosomes at late growth phase. This resulted in the overproduction of actinorhodin, caused by the transcriptional activation of the pathway-specific regulatory gene actII-orf4, possibly due to the increased translation of transcripts encoding activators of actII-orf4. The mutant with the K88E-GI92 double mutation accumulated a high level of ribosome recycling factor at late stationary phase, underlying the high level of protein synthesis activity observed.