Name: determination of chemical inhibitor efficiency against intracellular toxoplasma gondii growth using a luciferase-based growth assay
Uploaded: 2020-04-29T13:30:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Determination of Chemical Inhibitor Efficiency against Intracellular Toxoplasma Gondii Growth Using a Luciferase-Based Growth Assay at JoVE.com

The authors would like to thank Drs. Sibley and Carruthers for sharing pSAG1-Cas9-sgRNA-TgUPRT plasmid and anti-TgCPL and TgActin antibodies. This work was supported by the Clemson Startup fund (to Z.D.), Knights Templar Eye Foundation Pediatric Ophthalmology Career-Starter Research Grant (to Z.D.), a pilot grant of an NIH COBRE grant P20GM109094 (to Z.D.), and NIH R01AI143707 (to Z.D.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Toxoplasma gondii is categorized in Risk Group 2 and must be handled at a Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2). The protocol has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee at Clemson University.
1. Luciferase-based Toxoplasma growth assay
<ol>
	<li>Seed human foreskin fibroblasts (HFFs) 1 week before parasite inoculation to ensure that host cells are fully confluent. Perform a mock assay in a transparent plate to ensure that parasites remain intracellular thro...

<ol>
	<li>Blader, I. J., Coleman, B. I., Chen, C. T., Gubbels, M. J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Lytic+Cycle+of+Toxoplasma+gondii:+15+Years+Later.">Lytic Cycle of Toxoplasma gondii: 15 Years Later.</a> Annual Review of Microbiology. 69 (1), 1-23 (2014).</li><li>Jones, J. L., Kruszon-Moran, D., Rivera, H., Price, C., Wilkins, P. 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B., et al. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=An+ortholog+of+Plasmodium+falciparum+chloroquine+resistance+transporter+(PfCRT)+plays+a+key+role+in+maintaining+the+integrity+of+the+endolysosomal+system+in+Toxoplasma+gondii+to+facilitate+host+invasion.">An ortholog of Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) plays a key role in maintaining the integrity of the endolysosomal system in Toxoplasma gondii to facilitate host invasion.</a> PLOS Pathogens. 15 (6), e1007775 (2019).</li><li>Larson, E. 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++This protocol describes a luciferase-based protocol to assess intracellular Toxoplasma growth and evaluate the inhibition efficacy of chemical compounds against parasite growth. Compared to the existing strategies available for measuring intracellular Toxoplasma growth, this method exhibits high sensitivity and specificity. While monitoring parasite growth, a mock assay in a clear 96 well microplate is recommended to confirm that the tested strain does not prematurely lyse host cells before the end of...

Toxoplasma gondii is a highly successful obligate intracellular parasite that infects approximately one-third of the human population. Its high transmission rate is predominantly due to its diverse routes of transmission, including consumption of undercooked meat, exposure to mammalian reservoirs, and congenital transmission during birth. T. gondii mainly causes opportunistic infections that can lead to severe morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised individuals1,2,3,4,5,6. The antibiotics currently used for treating acute toxoplasmosis are particularly inefficient in treating congenital and latent infections and cause severe reactions in some individuals3,7,8. Thus, an urgent need to identify novel therapeutics exists. Understanding the differences in subcellular processes within Toxoplasma and its host will help to identify potential drug targets. Therefore, efficient and convenient genome manipulation techniques are required to study the roles of individual genes within Toxoplasma. Additionally, Toxoplasma belongs to the phylum Apicomplexa, which includes several other significant human pathogens, such as Plasmodium spp. and Cryptosporidium spp. Hence, Toxoplasma can be used as a model organism to help study basic biology in other apicomplexan parasites.
To identify novel antibiotics against microbial pathogens, high throughput screening of a library of chemical compounds is initially performed to determine their efficacy in the repression of microbial growth. So far, several microplate-based growth assays have been developed for measuring intracellular growth of T. gondii (i.e., radioactive 3H-uracil incorporation-based quantification9, quantitative ELISA-based parasite detection using T. gondii-specific antibodies10,11, reporter protein-based measurement using &#946;-galactosidase or YFP-expressing Toxoplasma strains12,13, and a recently developed high-content imaging assay14).
These individual strategies all have unique advantages; however, certain limitations also restrict their applications. For example, since Toxoplasma can only replicate within nucleated animal cells, autofluorescence and non-specific binding of anti-T. gondii antibodies to host cells cause interference in fluorescence-based measurements. Furthermore, usage of radioactive isotopes requires special safety compliance and potential safety issues. Some of these assays are more suitable for assessing growth at a single timepoint rather than continuous monitoring of growth.
Presented here is a luciferase-based protocol for the quantification of intracellular Toxoplasma growth. In a previous study, the NanoLuc luciferase gene was cloned under the Toxoplasma tubulin promoter, and this luciferase expression construct was transfected into wild-type (RH&#916;ku80&#916;hxg strain) parasites to create an RH&#916;ku80&#916;hxg::NLuc strain (referred to as RH&#916;ku80::NLuc hereafter)15. This strain served as the parental strain for intracellular growth determination and gene deletion in this study. Using the RH&#916;ku80::NLuc strain, parasite growth in human foreskin fibroblasts (HFFs) was monitored over a 96 h period post-infection to calculate parasite doubling time.
In addition, the inhibition efficacy of LHVS against parasite growth can be determined by plotting Toxoplasma growth rates against serial LHVS concentrations to identify the IC50 value. Previous literature has reported that TgCPL is a major target of LHVS in parasites and that treatment with LHVS decreases the development of acute and chronic Toxoplasma infections16,17,18,19. Additionally, RH&#916;ku80::NLuc was&#160;used as the parental strain for genome modification to generate a TgCPL-deficient strain (RH&#916;ku80&#916;cpl::NLuc), and the inhibition of LHVS was measured against this mutant. By observing an upshift of IC50 values for LHVS in the TgCPL-deficient parasites compared to the WT strain, it was validated that TgCPL is targeted by LHVS in vivo.
In this protocol, RH&#916;ku80::NLuc is used as the parental strain, which lacks an efficient non-homologous end-joining pathway (NHEJ), thereby facilitating double crossover homology-dependent recombination (HDR)20,21. Additionally, 50 bp homologous regions are flanked at both ends of a drug resistance cassette by PCR. The PCR product serves as a repair template to remove the entire gene locus via HDR using CRISPR-Cas9-based genome editing tools. Such short homologous regions can be easily incorporated into primers, providing a convenient strategy for production of the repair template. This protocol can be modified to perform universal gene deletion and endogenous gene tagging.
For instance, in our most recent publication, three protease genes, TgCPL, TgCPB (Toxoplasma cathepsin B-like protease), and TgSUB1 (Toxoplasma subtilisin-like protease 1), were genetically ablated in TgCRT (Toxoplasma chloroquine-resistance transporter)-deficient parasites using this method15. Additionally, TgAMN (a putative aminopeptidase N [TgAMN, TGGT1_221310]) was endogenously tagged15. The Lourido lab also reported using short homologous regions in the range of 40-43 bp for the introduction of site-directed gene mutation and endogenous gene tagging in the Toxoplasma genome using a similar method22. These successful genome modifications suggest that a 40-50 bp homologous region is sufficient for efficient DNA recombination in the TgKU80-deficient strain, which greatly simplifies genome manipulation in Toxoplasma gondii.

<table border="1" fo:keep-together.within-page="1" fo:keep-with-next.within-page="always">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>Agarose gel extraction kit</td>
			<td>New England BioLabs</td>
			<td>T1020L</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>BamHI</td>
			<td>New England BioLabs</td>
			<td>R0316S</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Biotek Synergy H1 Hybrid Multi-Mode Microplate Reader</td>
			<td>BioTek Instuments</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>BTX Gemini Twin Waveform Electroporation System</td>
			<td>Harvard Apparatus</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Chemically competent E. coli cells</td>
			<td>New England BioLabs</td>
			<td>C29871</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>CloneAmp HiFi PCR premix</td>
			<td>Takara Bio</td>
			<td>639298</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Coelenterazine h</td>
			<td>Prolume</td>
			<td>301-10 hCTZ</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EcoRV</td>
			<td>New England BioLabs</td>
			<td>R3195S</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Phire Tissue Direct PCR Master Mix</td>
			<td>Thermo Scientific</td>
			<td>F170L</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Plasmid miniprep kit</td>
			<td>Zymo Research</td>
			<td>D4054</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Q5 Site-Directed Mutagenesis kit</td>
			<td>New England BioLabs</td>
			<td>E0554S</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Software</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Geneious software for sgRNA design (version: R11)</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>GraphPad Prism software (8th version)</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>SnapGene for molecular cloning (version: 4.2.11)</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

determination of chemical inhibitor efficiency against intracellular toxoplasma gondii growth using a luciferase-based growth assay

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan pathogen that widely affects the human population. The current antibiotics used for treating clinical toxoplasmosis are limited. In addition, they exhibit adverse side effects in certain groups of people. Therefore, discovery of novel therapeutics for clinical toxoplasmosis is imperative. The first step of novel antibiotic development is to identify chemical compounds showing high efficacy in inhibition of parasite growth using a high throughput screening strategy. As an obligate intracellular pathogen, Toxoplasma can only replicate within host cells, which prohibits the use of optical absorbance measurements as a quick indicator of growth. Presented here is a detailed protocol for a luciferase-based growth assay. As an example, this method is used to calculate the doubling time of wild-type Toxoplasma parasites and measure the efficacy of morpholinurea-leucyl-homophenyl-vinyl sulfone phenyl (LHVS, a cysteine protease-targeting compound) regarding inhibition of parasite intracellular growth. Also described, is a CRISPR-Cas9-based gene deletion protocol in Toxoplasma using 50 bp homologous regions for homology-dependent recombination (HDR). By quantifying the inhibition efficacies of LHVS in wild-type and TgCPL (Toxoplasma cathepsin L-like protease)-deficient parasites, it is shown that LHVS inhibits wild-type parasite growth more efficiently than &#916;cpl growth, suggesting that TgCPL is a target that LHVS binds to in Toxoplasma. The high sensitivity and easy operation of this luciferase-based growth assay make it suitable for monitoring Toxoplasma proliferation and evaluating drug efficacy in a high throughput manner.

Figure 1 represents an example of a growth curve for the RH&#916;ku80::NLuc strain and the derived calculation for its doubling time. Generally, the assay is performed in three technical replicates for each of the three biological replicates to account for variations of luciferase activity readings. In order to calculate the normalized fold change of parasite growth, each reading at 24-96 h post-infection was divided by the initial reading a...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Determination of Chemical Inhibitor Efficiency against Intracellular Toxoplasma Gondii Growth Using a Luciferase-Based Growth Assay at JoVE.com

Determination of Chemical Inhibitor Efficiency against Intracellular Toxoplasma Gondii Growth Using a Luciferase-Based Growth Assay

Presented here is a protocol to evaluate the inhibition efficacy of chemical compounds against in vitro intracellular growth of Toxoplasma gondii using a luciferase-based growth assay. The technique is used to confirm inhibition specificity by genetic deletion of the corresponding target gene. The inhibition of LHVS against TgCPL protease is evaluated as an example.

Determination of Chemical Inhibitor Efficiency against Intracellular Toxoplasma Gondii Growth Using a Luciferase-Based Growth Assay

Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan pathogen that widely affects the human population. The current antibiotics used for treating clinical toxoplasmosis are ...

These sensitive strategies can be used to evaluate the inhibition efficacy of chemical inhibitors and in combination with CRISPR-Cas9 gene deletion to investigate the drug targets. Instead of using an endpoint assay, parasite growth can be monitored over time to allow calculation of parasite doubling time using a sensitive reporter protein. This assay can potentially be scaled up in 384 or 1, 536 well microplates for the testing of multiple compounds or for the screening of libraries in a high throughput manner.This strategy can be modified to quantify the growth of other intracellular microbial pathogens and their responses to the drug of interest. To perform a luciferase-based Toxoplasma growth assay, begin by carefully aspirating the medium from pre-seeded 96-well microplate cultures of human foreskin fibroblasts and inoculate 150 microliters of parasite B suspension into the wells in a three column-five row format. After a four-hour incubation in the cell culture incubator, carefully aspirate the medium from each well to remove the non-invaded parasites and fill the wells in each but the first row with room temperature phenol red free medium.Then add 100 microliters of a 12.5 micromolar luciferase substrate solution in PBS into each well of the top row and incubate the microplates for 10 minutes at room temperature to allow full cell lysis. At the end of the incubation, measure the luciferase activity on a microplate reader. Each reading represents the initial number of invaded parasites at four hours post infection.Repeat the analysis every 24 hours for the next four days without changing the medium. To calculate the normalized fold-change of parasite growth, each reading can be divided by the initial reading at four hours post infection. The log 2 of the normalized fold-change of parasite growth can then be plotted against each time point and subjected to a linear regression function to obtain the slope which represents the doubling time.To assess the efficacy of the inhibition of a compound of interest on Toxoplasma growth, culture human foreskin fibroblasts in 96-well microplates for at least seven days before inoculating each well of cells with 150 microliters of parasites as demonstrated for four hours at 37 degrees Celsius and 5%carbon dioxide. During the incubation, prepare the compound of interest at eight different concentrations in a 12-well reservoir by serial dilution. Dilute the compounds in a 12-well reservoir at a one-to-three dilution by pipetting each mixture up and down several times with a one milliliter pipette.At four hours post infection, replace the medium in each well from columns two through nine with 150 microliters of medium supplemented with each dilution of compound, leaving the first column filled with regular medium to serve as the non-treated control. Then return the cell cultures to the cell culture incubator for 96 hours and measure the luciferase activity for each well to determine the percentage of growth inhibition in the cultures at each concentration of compound. To calculate the normalized luciferase activity as a percentage, divide the average luciferase activity for each compound concentration by the average luciferase activity derived from the non-treated parasites.Then use an appropriate graphing software program to plot the normalized luciferase activities against the individual compound and to calculate the half maximal inhibitory concentration for each compound. To generate a plasmid construct expressing single-guide RNA and Cas9 for deleting a gene of interest, navigate to the Toxoplasma Genomics Resource page and retrieve the entire gene coding sequence including the introns and exons along with the 1.5 kilobase five and three prime untranslated regions. Copy the retrieved TgCPL sequence into the sequence analysis software and label the five and three prime untranslated regions.On the Toxoplasma Genomics Resource page, click Download, Data Files, and Current_Release. In the T.gondii GT1 folder, select FASTA. From the data folder, download the Toxoplasma gondii GT1 strain genome sequence file.Then create a local folder named Toxoplasma Genome in the DNA sequence analysis software and import the Toxoplasma genome sequence file into the folder. Select Tools, Cloning, and Find CRISPR Sites and set three prime Cas9 prime for the PAM site location. Select a single-guide RNA that demonstrates a high specificity score, generally greater than 98%and lacks a G following the NGG.The selected single-guide RNA is usually located at sites close to the start and stop codons of the gene of interest. Then use a PCR premix with the settings as indicated in the table to perform a PCR reaction to modify the preexisting plasmid expressing single-guide RNA that targets the TgUPRT gene. For Toxoplasma transfection, mix two micrograms of repaired template DNA with 20 micrograms of the single-guide RNA Cas9 expression plasmids and mix 400 microliters of parasite resuspension, DNA, and five microliters of 200 millimolar ATP 500 millimolar reduced glutathione in a 1.5 milliliter centrifuge tube.Add cytomix buffer to bring the total volume up to 500 microliters as necessary and transfer the parasite DNA mixture to a four millimeter gap with electroporation cuvette. Then electroporate the parasites at two kilovolts and 50 ohms of resistance. To clone knockout parasites, first perform a two-step dilution of the parasites to achieve a 10 parasites per milliliter of D10 medium supplemented with the appropriate antibiotic concentration.Next, transfer 150 microliters of the resuspended purified parasites to each well of a 96-well microplate pre-seeded with foreskin fibroblasts and incubate the microplate at 37 degrees Celsius and 5%carbon dioxide for seven days. At the end of the incubation, identify the wells containing a single plaque and transfer 75 microliters of the resuspended Toxoplasma-infected human foreskin fibroblasts from each well of the 96-well microplate culture into individual 1.5 milliliter tubes. Collect the cells by centrifugation and resuspend the pellets in 10.25 microliters of lysis buffer containing dilution buffer in DNA release additive.Then incubate the samples for four minutes at room temperature and two minutes at 98 degrees Celsius before performing PCR to test for the integration of the drug resistance cassette and loss of the gene of interest. The inhibition efficacies of LHVS and wild type in delta CPL strains can be determined by plotting their luciferase activities against different inhibitor concentrations. After PCR, the mutated plasmid is linearized and loaded into a 1%agarose gel for the verification of a successful amplification.After gel extraction and E.coli transformation, the clones containing the expected plasmids can be screened by restriction endonuclease digestion in DNA sequencing. After repair template amplification, agarose gel electrophoresis can be used to verify the correct size of the PCR product. Generally, seven to eight clones are selected for the initial screening to check for deletion of the coding sequence of the gene of interest, followed by detection of the five and three prime arms to help minimalize the total number of clones to be screened.Further verification can be completed by immunoblotting if any antibody recognizing the target protein is available. Before obtaining luciferase activity measurements, a clear microplate with a mock infection should be checked under a microscope to ensure that the parasites do not fully lyse the host cells.

Research

JoVE Journal

Immunology and Infection

Obtaining Highly Purified Toxoplasma gondii Oocysts by a Discontinuous Cesium Chloride Gradient

Obtaining Highly Purified Toxoplasma gondii Oocysts by a Discontinuous Cesium Chloride Gradient

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular protozoan pathogen that commonly infects humans. It is a well characterized apicomplexan associated with ...

Toxoplasma gondii Cyst Wall Formation in Activated Bone Marrow-derived Macrophages and Bradyzoite Conditions

Toxoplasma gondii Cyst Wall Formation in Activated Bone Marrow-derived Macrophages and Bradyzoite Conditions

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that can invade any nucleated cell of warm-blooded animals. During infection, T. gondii ...

Transnuclear Mice with Pre-defined T Cell Receptor Specificities Against Toxoplasma gondii Obtained Via SCNT

Transnuclear Mice with Pre-defined T Cell Receptor Specificities Against Toxoplasma gondii Obtained Via SCNT

Lymphocytes, such as T cells, undergo genetic V(D)J recombination, to generate a receptor with a certain specificity1. Mice transgenic for a rearranged ...

A Genetic Screen to Isolate Toxoplasma gondii Host-cell Egress Mutants

A Genetic Screen to Isolate Toxoplasma gondii Host-cell Egress Mutants

The widespread, obligate intracellular, protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii causes opportunistic disease in immuno-compromised patients and causes birth ...

Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Biofilms

Growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Biofilms

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiologic agent of human tuberculosis, has an extraordinary ability to survive against environmental stresses including ...

A Parasite Rescue and Transformation Assay for Antileishmanial Screening Against Intracellular Leishmania donovani Amastigotes in THP1 Human Acute Monocytic Leukemia Cell Line

A Parasite Rescue and Transformation Assay for Antileishmanial Screening Against Intracellular Leishmania donovani Amastigotes in THP1 Human Acute Monocytic Leukemia Cell Line

Leishmaniasis is  one of the world's most neglected diseases, largely affecting the  poorest of the poor, mainly in developing countries. Over 350 million ...

Staphylococcus aureus Growth using Human Hemoglobin as an Iron Source

Staphylococcus aureus Growth using Human Hemoglobin as an Iron Source

S. aureus is a pathogenic bacterium that requires iron to  carry out vital metabolic functions and cause disease. The most abundant  reservoir of iron ...

Genetic Manipulation in &Delta;ku80 Strains for Functional Genomic Analysis of Toxoplasma gondii

Targeted genetic manipulation using homologous recombination is the method of choice for functional genomic analysis to obtain a detailed view of gene ...

Using Fluorescent Proteins to Visualize and Quantitate Chlamydia Vacuole Growth Dynamics in Living Cells

Using Fluorescent Proteins to Visualize and Quantitate Chlamydia Vacuole Growth Dynamics in Living Cells

The obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia elicits a great burden on global public health. C.&#160;trachomatis is the leading bacterial cause of ...

Forward Genetics Screens Using Macrophages to Identify Toxoplasma gondii Genes Important for Resistance to IFN-&#947;-Dependent Cell Autonomous Immunity

Forward Genetics Screens Using Macrophages to Identify Toxoplasma gondii Genes Important for Resistance to IFN-&#947;-Dependent Cell Autonomous Immunity

Toxoplasma gondii, the causative agent of toxoplasmosis, is an obligate intracellular protozoan pathogen. The parasite invades and replicates within ...