In Silico Docking Analysis of Peptide Deformylase (PDF) – A Novel Target for Prophylaxis of Leptospirosis
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- Dr. D. Y. Patil Institute for Biotechnology & Bioinformatics, Department of Bioinformatics
- Dr. D. Y. Patil Institute for Biotechnology & Bioinformatics, Department of Biotechnology
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- Document Type:
- Manuscript
- Date:
- Received 16 January 2008 06:21 UTC; Posted 21 January 2008
- Subjects:
- Microbiology, Pharmacology, Bioinformatics
- Abstract:
Peptide deformylase (PDF) is a metalloproteinase and executes an essential step in the maturation of proteins in eubacteria, by removing the formyl group from the N-terminal methionine residue of ribosome-synthesized polypeptides. This process is crucial for bacterial survival because mature proteins do not retain N-formyl-methionine, and all known N-terminal peptidases cannot utilize formylated peptides as substrate. Thus, inhibition of PDF is essential to obstruct the bacterial protein maturation process. Antibiotics based on PDF inhibition have the potential to provide the much needed antibacterial activity against most of the major drug-resistant pathogens. This study comprises an implementation of in-silico techniques to validate and map the features of the respective active site of PDF from Leptospira interrogans. Our analysis consolidates PDF as a promising target for developing novel alternatives as well as indicates superior affinity of current therapeutic agents towards it. This consequently provides a new insight for leptospirosis treatment.
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- This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
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Bastikar, Virupaksha, Fulsundar, Shweta, and Nair, Jagdish. In Silico Docking Analysis of Peptide Deformylase (PDF) – A Novel Target for Prophylaxis of Leptospirosis. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.1520.1> (2008)
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Niyaz Ahmed on 06 July 2008 17:03 UTC
I think the study is carried out with the objective of finding a drug target through bioinformatic techniques. However, the title is misleading and mentions ‘prophylaxis’. The word prophylaxis is used to convey prevention, meaning vaccination in a broad sense. I suggest the authors get this clarified.
Secondly, treatment of leptospirosis has traditionally been never ever a problem as the organism is highly susceptible to tetracyclines and streptomycin without any report on drug resistance. The main problem however, is timely diagnosis. Therefore, my suggestion for the authors is to hunt and find out a diagnostic target rather than directing efforts at drug target identification. If they want to continue on drug target identification and testing through theoretical approaches why not to try other more important organisms? Tuberculosis is the disease that badly needs a drug target. As such thousands of computational biologists are sitting on countless number of targets; testing, docking and what not. Yet we do not have any molecule entering into piepline, even after a decade of genome sequence information becoming available.