Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB), the second most deadly disease in the world is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). In the present work a unique enzyme of Mtb orotidine 5' monophosphate decarboxylase (Mtb-OMP Decase) is selected as drug target due to its indispensible role in biosynthesis of pyrimidines. The present work is focused on understanding the structural and functional aspects of Mtb-OMP Decase at molecular level. Due to absence of crystal structure, the 3D structure of Mtb-OMP Decase was predicted by MODELLER9V7 using a known structural template 3L52. Energy minimization and refinement of the developed 3D model was carried out with Gromacs 3.2.1 and the optimized homology model was validated by PROCHECK,WHAT-IF and PROSA2003. Further, the surface active site amino acids were quantified by WHAT-IF pocket. The exact binding interactions of the ligands, 6-idiouridine 5' monophosphate and its designed analogues with the receptor Mtb-OMP Decase were predicted by docking analysis with AUTODOCK 4.0. This would be helpful in understanding the blockade mechanism of OMP Decase and provide a candidate lead for the discovery of Mtb-OMP Decase inhibitors, which may bring insights into outcome new therapy to treat drug resistant Mtb.