Novel enoyl-ACP reductase (FabI) potential inhibitors of Escherichia coli from Chinese medicine monomers

By structure-based virtual screening and experimental verification, two Chinese medicine monomers, luteolin and curcumin, had been proved to be uncompetitive inhibitors of enoyl-ACP reductase from Escherichia coli (EcFabI) with the inhibition constant (Ki) of 7.1 μM and 15.0 μM, respectively. In particular, curcumin had apparent antibacterial activity against E. coli, and the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC90) was 73.7 μg/mL. Importantly, fabI-overexpressing E. coli showed reduced susceptibility to the inhibitor compared with the wild-type strains, demonstrating that its antibacterial action is mediated by the inhibition of EcFabI.

Graphical abstractCurcumin has been proved to be an uncompetitive inhibitor of enoyl-ACP reductase from Escherichia coli (EcFabI) with the inhibition constant (Ki) of 15 μM. Particularly, curcumin had apparent antibacterial activity against E. coli, and the corresponding MIC90 was 73.7 μg/mL.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide