Title

Modeling of phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase from Leptospira interrogans serovar lai strain 56601

Authors

Vetrivel Umashankar¹, Gurunathan Subramanian² and Sudarsanam Dorairaj^*

Affiliation

¹Department of Bioinformatics, Vel’s College of Science, India, ²Department of Microbiology, Vel’s College of Science, India, *Department of Zoology, Loyola College, Chennai, India.

E-mail*

zoo@loyolacollege.edu; * Corresponding author

Article Type

Views & Challenges

Date

received May 14, 2006; revised June 07, 2006; accepted June 9, 2006; published online June 17, 2006

Abstract

Many microorganisms, as well as plants and fungi, synthesize thiamin, but vertebrates do not produce it. Phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase is an enzyme involved in an intermediary step of thiamin biosynthesis from purine molecules. This enzyme is absent in humans.  Thus, it is a potential chemotherapeutic target for antileptospiral treatment.  Structure of this enzyme from Leptospira interrogans serovar lai strain 56601 has not yet been elucidated.  We used the structural template of phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase from Thermus thermophilus HB8 for modeling the phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase structure from Leptospira interrogans serovar lai strain 56601.  The model is deposited in Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 2G53) at RCSB.  Thus, we analyse and propose the usefulness of the modeled phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase for the design of suitable inhibitors towards the treatment of leptospirosis. 

Keywords

Leptospirosis; Leptospira interrogans; modeler; homology modeling; phosphomethyl pyrimidine kinase

Citation

Umashankar et al., Bioinformation 1(5): 158-160 (2006)

Edited by

V. S. Mathura

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.