Identification of an inhibitory pocket in falcilysin bound by chloroquine provides a new avenue for malaria drug development

Abstract

AbstractDespite their widespread use, our understanding of how malaria drugs work remains limited. This includes chloroquine (CQ), the most successful antimalarial ever deployed. Here, we used MS-CETSA and dose-response transcriptional profiling to elucidate protein targets and mechanism of action (MOA) of CQ, as well as MK-4815, a malaria drug candidate with a proposed MOA similar to CQ. We identified falcilysin (FLN) as the target of both compounds and found that hemoglobin digestion was the key biological pathway affected, with distinct MOA profiles between CQ-sensitive and CQ-resistant parasites. We showed that CQ and MK-4815 inhibit FLN proteolytic activity, and using X-ray crystallography, that they occupy a hydrophobic pocket situated within the large peptide substrate binding cavity of FLN. As a key protein in the MOA of CQ, FLN now constitute an interesting target for the development of novel anti-malarial drugs with improved resistance profiles.