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Updated: Jun 1, 2026
System for Efficacy and Cytotoxicity Screening of Inhibitors Targeting Intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Published on: April 5, 2017
Identification of new potential Mycobacterium tuberculosis shikimate kinase inhibitors through molecular docking
Carolina Pasa Vianna1, Walter F de Azevedo
1Faculdade de Biociências, Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Tuberculose (INCT-TB), Laboratório de Bioquímica Estrutural (LaBioQuest), Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Av. Ipiranga 6681, Porto Alegre, RS 90619-900, Brazil.
Abstract:
Tuberculosis (TB) is the major cause of human mortality from a curable infectious disease, attacking mainly in developing countries. Among targets identified in Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome, enzymes of the shikimate pathway deserve special attention, since they are essential to the survival of the microorganism and absent in mammals. The object of our study is shikimate kinase (SK), the fifth enzyme of this pathway. We applied virtual screening methods in order to identify new potential inhibitors for this enzyme. In this work we employed MOLDOCK program in all molecular docking simulations. Accuracy of enzyme-ligand docking was validated on a set of 12 SK-ligand complexes for which crystallographic structures were available, generating root-mean square deviations below 2.0 Å. Application of this protocol against a commercially available database allowed identification of new molecules with potential to become drugs against TB. Besides, we have identified the binding cavity residues that are essential to intermolecular interactions of this enzyme.
