Estudos estruturais e computacionais das proteínas tirosina fosfatase A e B de <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i>

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious public health problem and the second leading cause of death among infectious diseases. In 2014, 9.6 million cases, and approximately 1.5 million deaths were reported. The National Program for Tuberculosis Control recommends the simultaneous administration of four drugs as treatment for the disease. However, inadequate treatment determines the emergence of multidrug-and extensively-resistant strains to available drugs. Therefore, new molecular targets and drugs are urgently needed for the treatment of the infection. The protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) are a large family of enzymes responsible for the hydrolysis of phosphate group bound to tyrosine residues in proteins. The importance of these molecules is related to the regulation of a number of cellular functions, including growth, intercellular interaction, metabolism, transcription, motility and immune response. Based on Mycabacteirum tuberculosis genome analysis, two protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPA and PtpB) were related to mycobacterium survival in host macrophages. Both enzymes have been explored as a molecular target for the development of new drugs for TB. In this dissertation, the gene sequences encoding the enzymes PtpA and PtpB from M. tuberculosis were successfully cloned in expression vectors. The soluble expression of the proteins allowed the establishment of a standardized purification protocol. Crystallization assays were conducted, protein crystals were obtained, and crystallographic data were collected. We determine the crystallographic structure of PtpB in complex with a phosphate group in the catalytic site at high resolution. This structure was then used in the subsequent step for the discovery of new inhibitor candidates. Computational studies included a combination of strategies for identifying interaction points relevant to the process of molecular recognition and binding as well as the construction of 3D pharmacophore models specific for each enzyme. These data were used to select a set of 8 and 5 compounds as PtpA and PtpB inhibitor candidates, respectively. Therefore, structural molecular biology and medicinal chemistry studies have been successfully conducted for the establishment of a platform aimed to the production of the selected targets as well as for the selection of new inhibitor candidates.