Abstract
Leprosy or Hansen disease is a slowly progressive infection caused by Mycobacterium leprae , affecting the skin and peripheral nerves and resulting in disabling deformities. Studies show that M. leprae binds to nasal epithelial cells in human after binding to fibronectin, using Beta-integrins (ITGB1) as receptors. The corresponding component on M. leprae , which binds to fibronectin, Fibronectin Attachment Protein (FAP), has been identified .The 3D structure of both the human (ITGB1) and M.leprae (FAP-L) protein involved in this mechanism are modeled using homology modeling. Hemolin, an insect-immune protein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily is found to have an efficient defense system against bacterial infections. So this protein is selected and its 3D structure is modeled too. The active compound Anacardic acid of marine brown alga Fucus vesiculosus and the compound Polyhydroxylated fucophlorethol of Anacardium occidentale is found to have antibacterial activity. Their structure was drawn using Chemsketch, combined and converted to *.pdb. The combination is docked with Hemolin protein. This docked compound is again redocked with the human ITGB1 protein using GRAMM-X. Again, the combination (Anacardic acid and Polyhydroxylated fucophlorethol) was docked with M. leprae which proves that the combination can be effective in curing Hansen disease. Keywords - Hansen Disease, Leprosy, Beta-integrin, Bioinformatics, Mycobacterium leprae , Ayurveda, Homology modeling, Docking.
Highlights
IntroductionLeprosy (from the Greek lepi meaning scales on a fish), or Hansen's disease (HD), caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis [1]
Leprosy, or Hansen's disease (HD), caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis [1]
Since M. leprae binds to nasal epithelial cells after binding to Fibronectin, using Beta-integrin as receptors the study was made on ITGB1 protein
Summary
Leprosy (from the Greek lepi meaning scales on a fish), or Hansen's disease (HD), caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis [1]. This affects the mucous membranes of the skin and nerves. For a long time this disease was seen as a curse, a hereditary disease and its patients used to be stigmatized. M.leprae, known as Hansen’s coccus spirilly, mostly found in warm tropical countries, is a bacterium that causes leprosy (Hansen's disease). It is an intracellular, pleomorphic, acid-fast bacterium [4]
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