A new approach is being taken up by researchers where they are now focusing on intrinsically disordered proteins as potential drug targets. A couple of exciting work have sprung up in the recent past.
A whole proteome analysis has been carried out for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in our lab. The study revealed 13 potential drug targets which should be considered while prioritizing Anti-microbial drug targets.
One such suggested drug target - GlmU (Rv1018c) has been prioritized by Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) consortium (http://sysborgtb.osdd.net/bin/view/OpenProjectSpace/MycobacteriumTuberculosisGlmURv1018cDrugTarget). Glmu is a bifunctional protein comprising of an Uridyltransfer domain at the N-terminal and an acetyltransfer domain towards the C-terminal. The interesting aspect is that the C-terminal of this protein is intrinsically disordered i.e, in native form this region doesn't adopt a rigid secondary structure, but has the ability to attain such structure once interacts with a suitable biomolecule (protein,DNA or small molecule). Recently structure of this particular protein has been solved, with the limitation that the intrinsically disordered tail is missing out. Exploring and exploiting this region might add new dimensions to our understanding of both - intrinsically disordered region as well anti-microbial targets which tend to remain disordered.
For more information please visit : http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/MB/article.asp?doi=b905518p
or email me.
Opinions/criticism/comments are invited.
