ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Sudip Paul1 , Moumoni Saha1, Sattya Narayan Talukdar2, Susmita Rajbongshi3, Rubait Nazneen Akhand4 and Md. Aminul Islam1
1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka-1342, Bangladesh.
2Department of Biochemistry, Primeasia University, Banani, Dhaka-1213, Bangladesh.
3Department of Pharmacy, LM College of Pharmacy, Gujrat Technological University, Gujrat, India.
4Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2015;9(2):919-926
© The Author(s). 2015
Received: 12/01/2015 | Accepted: 28/03/2015 | Published: 30/06/2015
Abstract

In silico structural and functional analyses of hypothetical proteins may unravel the hidden information seeded inside the protein sequence. This information could be utilized in finding new drug targets and drug designing. In the current study, we used different bioinformatics algorithms to conduct structural and functional annotations of a hypothetical protein in Mycobacterium leprae, ML-1369. In brief, at first the sequence analysis and secondary structure prediction were conducted and found that the studied hypothetical protein is a stable hydrophilic protein with a significant proportion of alpha helix and random coil. The protein was predicted to be a cytoplasmic protein. After that, we built the 3D model of the hypothetical protein using SWISS-MODEL from the complete amino acid sequence by homology modeling method. Then, we employed several quality and structural assessment programs such as ERRAT, Q-MEAN, ProSA, Procheck and found that the generated 3D model was structurally good and reliable. We also found that the protein contained the domain of unknown function (DUF) 387 and might belong to chromosomal condensation and segregation protein ScpB. STRING analysis also suggested the interaction of this protein with several others in cell division. The hypothetical protein is essential for the organism, although showed no homology to any human protein. Furthermore, KEGG analysis recommended the involvement of the protein in genetic information processing, environmental information processing, cellular processes and organisomal systems of M. leprae. The findings of the study will help better understanding of the functional protein network in the M. leprae that might lead to valuable drug development.

Keywords

Hypothetical protein, Mycobacterium leprae, ML-1369, Cell division

Article Metrics

Article View: 851

Share This Article

© The Author(s) 2015. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.