IN SILICO FINDING OF THE PUTATIVE DRUG TARGETS FROM HYPOTHETICAL SET OF PROTEINS FOR MYCOBACTERIUM LEPRAE TN

Leprosy is a chronic granulomatous disease caused by acid-fast bacilli Mycobacterium leprae. It is most prevalent in tropical countries and poses a threat to over 122 countries across the globe. In 2012, 232857 new cases of leprosy were registered in the world. World Health Organization (WHO), recommended the Multi Drug Therapy (MDT) for treatment of leprosy, but the minimum duration of treatment ranges from 6-12 months. Therefore, the need of a new putative target for treatment of leprosy, which is effective in leprosy and reduces the duration of treatment. The Proteome information available suggests that among the 1603 proteins in M. leprae TN, a staggering 27% or more remains classified as hypothetical uncharacterized set of proteins. In this present work we, assign the probable functions of hypothetical set of proteins present in M. leprae to explore their plausible role as new putative drug targets. Out of 442,177 hypothetical protein sequences had GO term. Of these, 43 sequences had disease ontology (DO) term, 59 sequences had human phenotype (HP) term and out of these 43 sequences, 16 sequences were found to contain only DO term, while 27 sequences had both HP and DO term. Out of 177, 15 sequences were found to be associated with 39 KEGG reference pathway pathways. Out of 39 pathways, inositol phosphate metabolism, fatty acid degradation, ethylbenzene degradation, sulfur relay system and limonene & pinene degradation were common metabolic pathway, which might be used as putative drug target for M. leprae.