Preliminary Investigations into the Binding Interactions between Plasmodial and Host Proteins using Computational Approaches

Abstract

Post-genomic scientists are left with large deposit of genomic and proteomic information such as peptides and protein residues for analysis. For example, one species of Plasmodium called falciparum has been recognized to have more than 4,600 peptides which are assembled into over 700 proteins, and human genome is identified to possess as much as 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. These proteins and peptides, acquired as a result of mutations require constant re-appraisal for purposes designing therapeutic interventions and improving on our wellbeing. Clinical approaches to assessing these vast data are expensive, resource and time consuming, laborious, and arduous. As a result, computational approaches have become necessary as they will streamline, re-strategise and rationalize preliminary clinical assessment procedures that are being employed in the search for drugs and vaccines. In this study, Plasmodial and their host target proteins are studied in order to find out if there exist correlation between established clinical findings and our computational outcomes. It was disclosed in this study that some computationally obtained results correlated with clinical findings. For example, the adhesive domain of the Circumsporozoite (CSP) and Importin alpha 3 which are clinically verified to interact are found to share the same Consensus Frequency computationally. On the other hand, some preliminary findings could not correlate with our outcomes. This could be as a result of the proteins engaged. Our findings therefore appears to suggest that binding interactions can be computationally established and also recommend that precise proteins or peptides be engaged in order to obtain the desired computational results.