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Development of novel anti-microbial agents based on bacteriophage genomicsRelated Patent Categories: Chemistry: Molecular Biology And Microbiology, Measuring Or Testing Process Involving Enzymes Or Micro-organisms; Composition Or Test Strip Therefore; Processes Of Forming Such Composition Or Test Strip, Involving Virus Or BacteriophageDevelopment of novel anti-microbial agents based on bacteriophage genomics description/claimsThe Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070020614, Development of novel anti-microbial agents based on bacteriophage genomics. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/407,804, filed Sep. 28, 1999, entitled DNA SEQUENCES FROM STAPYLOCOCCUS AUREUS BACTERIOPHAGE 77 THAT ENCODE ANTI-MICROBIAL POLYPEPTIDES, and claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/110,992, filed Dec. 3, 1999, entitled DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS BASED ON BACTERIOPHAGE GENOMICS, which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties, including drawings. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to the field of antibacterial agents and the treatment of infections of animals or other complex organisms by bacteria. [0003] The frequency and spectrum of antibiotic-resistant infections have, in recent years, increased in both the hospital and community. Certain infections have become essentially untreatable and are growing to epidemic proportions in the developing world as well as in institutional settings in the developed world. The staggering spread of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria has been attributed to microbial genetic characteristics, widespread use of antibiotic drugs, and changes in society that enhance the transmission of drug-resistant organisms. This spread of drug resistant microbes is leading to ever increasing morbidity, mortality and health-care costs. [0004] Ironically, it is the very success of antibiotics, resulting in their widespread use, that has contributed the most to rising numbers of drug resistant bacterial strains. The longer a bacterial strain is exposed to a drug, the more likely it is to acquire resistance. Today, a total of 160 antibiotics, all based on a few basic chemical structures and targeting a small number of metabolic pathways, have found their way to market. Over-prescription of these drugs, as well as the failure of patients to comply with the complete antibiotic regimen, has lead to the rapid emergence of antibiotic resistant strains. Such misuse of prescriptions, careless use of antibiotics in virtually all commercial production of beef and fowl, and changing societal conditions, such as the growth of day-care centers, increased long-term care in hospitals, and increased mobility of the population, has provided an environment where drug-resistant microbes can emerge and spread. Thus, virtually all common infectious bacteria are becoming, or have already become, resistant to one or more groups of antibiotics. Such resistance now reaches all classes of antibiotics currently in use, including: .beta.-lactams, fluoroquinolones, aminoglycosides, macrolide peptides, chloramphenicol, tetracyclines, rifampicin, folate inhibitors, glycopeptides, and mupirocin. [0005] Over the last 45 years bacteria have adapted genetically to avoid the destruction/alteration of the essential pathways that these chemotherapeutic agents target. Antibiotic resistant bacterial strains are now emerging at a higher rate than the rate at which new antibiotics are being developed. The consequence of this dilemma has been a dramatic increase in the cost of treating infections what would otherwise easily succumb to routine antibiotic therapy. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the emergence of multiple drug resistant pathogenic bacteria has led to a significant increase in morbidity and mortality, particularly in institutional settings. [0006] Most major pharmaceutical companies have on-going drug discovery programs for novel anti-microbials. These are based on screens for small molecule inhibitors (natural products, bacterial culture media, libraries of small molecules, combinatorial chemistry) of crucial metabolic pathways of the micro-organism of interest (e.g., bacteria, fungi, parasites, worms). The screening process is largely for cytotoxic compounds and in most cases is not based on a known mechanism of action of the compounds. Pharmaceutical companies have large programs in this area. Classical drug screening programs are being exhausted and many of these pharmaceutical companies are looking towards rational drug design programs. [0007] Several small to mid-size biotechnology companies as well as large pharmaceutical companies have developed systematic high-throughput sequencing programs to decipher the genetic code of specific micro-organisms of interest. The goal is to identify, through sequencing, unique biochemical pathways or intermediates that are unique to the microorganism. Knowledge of this may, in turn, form the rationale for a drug discovery program based on the mechanism of action of the identified enzymes/proteins. Genome Therapeutics Corp., The Institute for Genome Research, Human Genome Sciences Inc., and other companies have such sequencing programs in place. However, one of the most critical steps in this approach is the ascertainment that the identified proteins and biochemical pathways are 1) non-redundant and essential for bacterial survival, and 2) constitute suitable and accessible targets for drug discovery. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0008] While animals such as humans are, on occasion, infected by pathogenic bacteria, bacteria also have natural enemies. A number of host-specific viruses, known as bacteriophages or phages, infect and kill bacteria in the natural environment. Such bacteriophages generally have small compact genomes and bacteria are their exclusive hosts. Many known bacteria are host to a large number of bacteriophages that have been described in the literature. During the 1940's-1960's, phage biology was an area of active research. As a testimony to this, the study of phages which infect and inhibit the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) contributed much to the early understanding of molecular biology and virology. [0009] This invention utilizes the observation that bacteriophages successfully infect and inhibit or kill host bacteria, targeting a variety of normal host metabolic and physiological traits, some of which are shared by all bacteria, pathogenic and nonpathogenic alike. The term "pathogenic" as used herein denotes a contribution to or implication in disease or a morbid state of an infected organism. The invention thus involves identifying and elucidating the molecular mechanisms by which phages interfere with host bacterial metabolism, an objective being to provide novel targets for drug design. Whether the phage blocks bacterial RNA transcription or translation, or attacks other important metabolic pathways, such as cell wall assembly or membrane integrity, the basic blueprint for a phage's bacteria-inhibiting ability is encoded in its genome and can be unlocked using bioinformatics, functional genomics, and proteomics. By these means, the invention utilizes sequence information from the genomics of bacteriophage to identify novel antimicrobials that can be further used to actively and/or prophylactically treat bacterial infection. [0010] Two important components of the invention thus are: i) the identification of bacteria-inhibiting phage open reading frames ("ORF"s) and corresponding products that can be used to develop antibiotics based on amino acid sequence and secondary structural characteristics of the ORF products, and ii) the use of bacteriophages to map out essential bacterial target genes and homologs, which can in turn lead to the development of suitable anti-microbial agents. These two avenues represent new and general methods for developing novel antimicrobials. [0011] The invention thus concerns the identification of bacteriophage ORFs that supply bacteria-inhibiting functions. In this regard, use of the terms "inhibit", "inhibition", "inhibitory", and "inhibitor" all refer to a function of reducing a biological activity or function. Such reduction in activity or function can, for example, be in connection with a cellular component, e.g., an enzyme, or in connection with a cellular process, e.g., synthesis of a particular protein, or in connection with an overall process of a cell, e.g., cell growth. In reference to bacterial cell growth, for example, an inhibitory effect (i.e., a bacteria-inhibiting effect) may be bacteriocidal (killing of bacterial cells) or bacteriostatic (i.e., stopping or at least slowing bacterial cell growth). The latter slows or prevents cell growth such that fewer cells of the strain are produced relative to uninhibited cells over a given period of time. From a molecular standpoint, such inhibition may equate with a reduction in the level of, or elimination of, the transcription and/or translation of a specific bacterial target(s), or reduction or elimination of activity of a particular target biomolecule. [0012] It is particularly advantageous to evaluate a plurality of different phage ORFs for inhibitory activity which may be from one, but is preferably from a plurality of different phage. For example, evaluating ORFs from a number of different phage of the same bacterial host provides at least two advantages. One is that the multiple phages will provide identification of a variety of different targets. Second, it is likely that multiple phage will utilize the same cellular target. [0013] As used herein, the terms "bacteriophage" and "phage" are used interchangeably to refer to a virus which can infect a bacterial strain or a number of different bacterial strains. [0014] In the context of this invention, the term "bacteriophage ORF" or ""phage ORF" or similar term refers to a nucleotide sequence in or from a bacteriophage. In connection with a particular ORF, the terms refer an open reading frame which has at least 95% sequence identity, preferably at least 97% sequence identity, more preferably at least 98% sequence identity with an ORF from the particular phage identified herein (e.g., with an ORF as identified herein) or to a nucleic acid sequence which has the specified sequence identify percentage with such an ORF sequence. [0015] A first aspect of the invention thus provides a method for identifying a bacteriophage nucleic acid coding region encoding a product active on an essential bacterial target by identifying a nucleic acid sequence encoding a gene product which provides a bacteria-inhibiting function when the bacteriophage infects a host bacterium, preferably one that is an animal or plant pathogen, more preferably a bird or mammalian pathogen, and most preferably a human pathogen. The bacteriophage is an uncharacterized bacteriophage. Thus, the method excludes, for example, phage .lamda., .phi.x174, m13 and other E. coli-specific bacteriophage that have been studied with respect to gene number and/or function. It also excludes, for example, the nucleic acid coding regions described in Tables 13-14, and in preferred embodiments, excludes the phage in which those regions are naturally located. In preferred embodiments of this and the other aspects of the present invention, the phage is Staphylococcus aureus phage 77, 3A, or 96. [0016] In connection with bacteriophage, the term "uncharacterized" means that a certain bacteriophage's genome has not yet been fully identified such that the genes having function involved in inhibiting host cells have not been identified. In particular, phage for which the description of genomic or protein sequence was first provided herein are uncharacterized. Phage sequences for which host bacteria-inhibiting functions have been identified prior to the filing of the present application (or alternatively prior to the present invention) are specifically excluded from the aspects involving utilization of sequences from uncharacterized bacteriophage, except that aspects may involve a plurality of phage where one or more of those phage are uncharacterized and one or more others have been characterized to some extent. A number of different bacteria-inhibiting phage ORFs are indicated in Tables 12-14. The phage ORFs or sequences identified therein are not within the term "uncharacterized; alternatively, in preferred embodiments the phage containing those ORFs are excluded from this term. Further, any additional phage ORFs (or alternatively the phage which contain those ORFs) which have previously been described in the art as bacteria-inhibiting ORFs are expressly excluded; those ORFs or phage are known to those skilled in the art and the exclusion can be made express by specifically naming such ORFs or phage as needed (likewise for uncharacterized targets as described below). For the sake of brevity, such a listing is not expressly presented, as such information is readily available to those skilled in the art. [0017] Stating that an agent or compound is "active on" a particular cellular target, such as the product of a particular gene, means that the target is an important part of a cellular pathway which includes that target and that the agent acts on that pathway. Thus, in some cases the agent may act on a component upstream or downstream of the stated target, including on a regulator of that pathway or a component of that pathway. [0018] By "essential", in connection with a gene or gene product, is meant that the host cannot survive without, or is significantly growth compromised, in the absence depletion, or alteration of functional product. An "essential gene" is thus one that encodes a product that is beneficial, or preferably necessary, for cellular growth in vitro in a medium appropriate for growth of a strain having a wild-type allele corresponding to the particular gene in question. Therefore, if an essential gene is inactivated or inhibited, that cell will grow significantly more slowly, preferably less than 20%, more preferably less than 10%, most preferably less than 5% of the growth rate of the uninhibited wild-type, or not at all, in the growth medium. Preferably, in the absence of activity provided by a product of the gene, the cell will not grow at all or will be non-viable, at least under culture conditions similar to the in vivo conditions normally encountered by the bacterial cell during an infection. For example, absence of the biological activity of certain enzymes involved in bacterial cell wall synthesis can result in the lysis of cells under normal osmotic conditions, even though protoplasts can be maintained under controlled osmotic conditions. In the context of the invention, essential genes are generally the preferred targets of antimicrobial agents. Essential genes can encode target molecules directly or can encode a product involved in the production, modification, or maintenance of a target molecule. [0019] A "target" refers to a biomolecule that can be acted on by an exogenous agent, thereby modulating, preferably inhibiting, growth or viability of a cell. In most cases such a target will be a nucleic acid sequence or molecule, or a polypeptide or protein. However, other types of biomolecules can also be targets, e.g., membrane lipids and cell wall structural components. [0020] The term "bacterium" refers to a single bacterial strain, and includes a single cell, and a plurality or population of cells of that strain unless clearly indicated to the contrary. In reference to bacteria or bacteriophage the term "strain" refers to bacteria or phage having a particular genetic content. The genetic content includes genomic content as well as recombinant vectors. Thus, for example, two otherwise identical bacterial cells would represent different strains if each contained a vector, e.g., a plasmid, with different phage ORF inserts. [0021] Preferred embodiments involve expressing at least one recombinant phage ORF(s) in a bacterial host followed by inhibition analysis of that host. Inhibition following expression of the phage ORF is indicative that the product of the ORF is active on an essential bacterial target. Such evaluation can be carried out in a variety of different formats, such as on a support matrix such as a solidified medium in a petri dish, or in liquid culture. Preferably a plurality of phage ORFs are expressed in at least one bacterium. The plurality of phage ORFs can be from one or a plurality of phage. With respect to a single phage or at least one phage in a plurality of phages, the plurality of expressed ORFs preferably represents at least 10%, more preferably at least 20%, 40%, or 60%, still more preferably at least 80% or 90%, and most preferably at least 95% of the ORFs in the phage genome. Preferably, for a plurality of phage, the plurality of expressed ORFs preferably represents at least 10%, more preferably at least 20%, 40%, or 60%, still more preferably at least 80% or 90%, and most preferably at least 95% of the ORFs in the phage genome of each phage. The plurality of phage ORFs can be expressed in a single bacterium, or in a plurality of bacteria where one ORF is expressed in each bacterium, or in a plurality of bacteria where a plurality of ORFs are expressed in at least one or in all of the plurality of bacteria, or combinations of these. Continue reading about Development of novel anti-microbial agents based on bacteriophage genomics... 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