➤ Mycobacterium tuberculosis
➤ Antimicrobial Drug Discovery
➤ Monoclonal Antibody as therapeutics against disease
Role of Toxin antitoxin systems of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is till date, one of major cause of mortality in humans, killing 2 million people a year. It has very efficiently adapted itself to environmental changes and survived various stress encountered in the host. The researches have revealed the existence of Toxin Antitoxin systems as one of such various systems employed by the pathogen to respond to stress conditions. TA loci code for two components, a stable toxin and a labile antitoxin. Under favorable conditions of growth, this system forms a complex but in adverse conditions the expression of toxin inhibits or arrests the cell growth, benefitting the bacteria in such conditions. This non growing state of bacterial cell, induced by toxins can be resuscitated by the induction of cognate antitoxin genes. These systems have been shown to be involved various cellular functions in microbes including persister and biofilm formation. TA pairs have been identified in mycobacteria as well and their biological role is still being studied. Thus, we are interested in understanding role of these systems in mycobacterial physiology.
Antibacterial drug Discovery
In this technologically sound era, we still lag behind in treating the bacterial diseases. The reason being fast paced emergence of drug resistant bacteria, leading to chronic state of disease. We are part of team where we intend to discover a new drug moiety with novel mechanism of action that can help curb mortality rate due to bacterial infections.
Monoclonal Antibody as therapeutics against disease
In the current scenario of medical treatment of bacterial infection, microbes have acquired antibiotic resistance and antibiotics are unable to eradicate biofilms and persisters. In order to control infection, we also need to explore different approaches for development of antimicrobials. This may helps in finding different mechanisms of preventing the disease. In this respect we want to make use of monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics. Currently, we are developing a murine monoclonal antibody against the secreted protein of bacterial pathogen and would evaluate its effectiveness.