Homology modeling-based structure prediction of pathogenic factors of Neisseria meningitidis

Abstract

Pathogenic bacteria Neisseria meningitidis cause serious infection i.e. meningitis (infection of the brain) worldwide. Among five pathogenic serogroups, serogroups B causes life threatening illness as there is no effective vaccine available due to its poor immunogenicity. N. meningitidis genome contains73 genes which have been reported to be essential for meningococcal pathogenicity and are considered as crucial drug targets. During the present study, proteins involved in transport and binding mechanisms of the pathogen, i.e.NMB1240, NMB1612, NMB2044 and NMB2045 were targeted for homology-based three dimensional structure determinations. Homology modeling of all the target proteins by MODELLER and model evaluation by PROSA and PROCHECK were carried out. The overall three dimensional folds of the models were consistent with the folds of their respective templates including the active/binding site residues. Here, it is concluded that based on high similarities between targets’ and templates’ three dimensional architectures as well as good evaluation scores, the proposed models are much authentic and can be used in drug designing studies against N. meningitidis.