Subtractive Genomic Analysis for Identification of Novel Drug Targets and Vaccine Candidates against Bartonella bacilliformis subsp. Ver097

Abstract

Bartonella bacilliformis is the causative agent of Carrión’s disease, one of the truly neglected tropical diseases found in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Recent evidence predicts that Bartonella bacilliformis subsp. ver097 can emerge as an antibacterial resistant strain and hence identification of novel drug targets is a crying need. Subtractive genome analysis of B. bacilliformis subsp. ver097 was successfully done in order to address the challenges. Various computational tools and online based servers were used to screen out human homologous proteins of pathogen and proteins involved in common metabolic pathways of host and pathogen. Only 7 proteins involved in pathogen specific pathways were further analyzed to identify membrane proteins. ‘Flagellar biosynthesis protein FlhA’ and ‘ABC transporter permease’ were found to be novel as targets according to DrugBank database. To avoid side effects in human while administering drugs, human ‘anti-targets’ analysis was performed to confirm non-homology of selected novel drug targets. Both predicted proteins also showed probability of antigenicity prediction through VaxiJen, however, ‘Flagellar biosynthesis protein FlhA’ showed broad spectrum conservancy with Bartonella strains. Therefore, Flagellar biosynthesis protein FlhAcould facilitate the development of novel drugs and therapeutic compounds along with vaccines for efficient treatment of infections caused by Bartonella bacilliformis subsp. ver097.