Integrated Bioinformatics analysis of structural differences in metabolic pathways. An application to Mycobacterium Leprae

The design of new drugs or molecular probes cannot be disjoint from structural knowledge. Small differences in protein structure can affect the metabolic activity. We present a workflow integrating different databases, alignment systems and structural comparison tools for the investigation of structural differences among metabolic pathways. A comparative analysis has been carried out between M.Tuberculosis (a quite well know mycobacterial strain) and the M. Leprae for which structural knowledge is extremely limited. The result is an insight relating to M.leprae which could be a promising basis for drug design and for the set up of specific molecular probes for diagnosis.