Question: which one of the following is swine influenza virus?
(a) H1b1
(b) H5N1
(c) H7N9
(d) None of the Above
Ans: (a)
Related facts:
- Researchers from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), Delhi have found a novel route to discover new drug targets and potential drugs for parasites that cause several diseases such as Loa loa nematode (roundworm) and Schistosoma mansoni platyhelminths (flatworm).
- Both these parasites cause a major health burden particularly in African countries. There are limited treatment options and there is the usual threat of drug resistance.
- There is little interest in developing drugs for these diseases by pharmaceutical companies; they are hence called neglected tropical diseases.
- A team led by Dr. Amit Sharma from the Molecular Medicine Group at ICGEB looked at Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) of the two parasites instead of blindly screening molecules, which takes a long time and is expensive.
- In the next step, the team picked up one of the enzymes and validated it as a drugable target. For that purpose, the enzymes were recombinantly produced and their activities were studied.
- The researchers studied the crystal structure of the enzyme with cladosporin. This revealed how tightly the drug binds within the active site of the enzyme. The researchers could understand the active sites of the enzyme and how the drug inhibits their enzyme activity.
- Once the team solved the crystal structure of the enzyme they were able to make an atomic map of all the interacting atoms of both the drug and enzyme. The crystal structure helped to identify the drug pockets in the enzyme where the drug binds.
- Once the genome sequence of any parasite is known then it becomes possible to look at the same interacting atoms in the highly conserved tRNA synthetase enzyme family and assess whether the drug will be able to inhibit the enzyme activity.
- A Research Paper to this regard was published in Journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Reference:
http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0005084
https://journosdiary.com/2016/12/06/icgeb-drug-discovery/