Detalhes bibliográficos
| Ano de defesa: |
2014 |
| Autor(a) principal: |
Quitian, Zilpa Adriana Sánchez
 |
| Orientador(a): |
Santos, Diógenes Santiago
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| Banca de defesa: |
Não Informado pela instituição |
| Tipo de documento: |
Tese
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| Tipo de acesso: |
Acesso aberto |
| Idioma: |
por |
| Instituição de defesa: |
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
|
| Programa de Pós-Graduação: |
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biologia Celular e Molecular
|
| Departamento: |
Faculdade de Biociências
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| País: |
BR
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| Palavras-chave em Português: |
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| Área do conhecimento CNPq: |
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| Link de acesso: |
http://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/5483
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Resumo: |
The causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), Mycobacterium tuberculosis, infects one-third of the world population. The World Health Organization estimates that 8.6 million new TB cases occurred in 2012, resulting in 1.3 million deaths worldwide. Thus, there is a continuous need to find promising molecular targets for the development of anti-TB agents and to identify pathogenic determinants associated with M. tuberculosis virulence aiming the development of attenuated mutant strains as new vaccine candidates against TB. Enzymes involved in purine and pyrimidine biosynthesis have important roles in cellular metabolism, as they provide nucleotides that are essential components of a number of essential biomolecules. Cytidine deaminase (CDA) catalyzes the hydrolytic deamination of cytidine to uridine, and belongs to the pyrimidine salvage pathway. The CDA from M. tuberculosis (MtCDA) is a target for the development of attenuated strains of M. tuberculosis because it may be involved in mechanisms of pathogenicity such as latency. This work presents the crystal structures of MtCDA in complex with uridine (2.4 Å resolution) and deoxyuridine (1.9 Å resolution). Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation was performed to analyze the physically relevant motions involved in the protein ligand recognition process, showing that structural flexibility of some residues are important to product binding. In addition, MD simulations allowed the analysis of the stability of tetrameric MtCDA structure. The role of the conserved glutamate-47 (E47) residue was evaluated by construction of five mutant proteins (E47A, E47D, E47L, E47H, and E47Q). Mutants E47A and E47H were expressed in insoluble fraction, whereas E47D, E47L and E47Q were soluble and purified by HPLC. The E47D, E47L and E47Q mutants contained 1 mol of Zn2+ per mol of protein subunit. These mutations had no effect on oligomerization state of MtCDA. Steady-state kinetic results showed that KM values for the E47D and E47Q mutants were not significantly altered, whereas there was a decrease in kcat values of 37-fold for E47D and 19-fold for E47Q mutant. No activity could be detected for E47L mutant. The crystal structure of the E47D mutant was solved by X-rays diffraction, using synchrotron light. An essential role was proposed for the -carboxyl group of E47, and its involvement in the catalityc process. On the other hand, an important part of drug and vaccine development is the identification of gene products that are critical for bacterial growth and survival. In this way the knockout of the cdd gene was performed in order to evaluate the importance of the cdd gene for mycobacteria growth in vitro and in vivo. Our results suggest that cdd gene is not an essential gene for in vitro growth under the employed experimental conditions. Infection in mice with the knockout strain of cdd gene has shown a significant reduction in the CFU s in lungs and spleen of the infected animals. Futher experiments are under way to confirm such findings. Finally, results from enzymatic characterization, site directed mutagenesis and gene replacement may be the starting point for a better understanding about the role of cytidine deaminase in M. tuberculosis metabolism and open up the possibility for a rational design of attenuated strain, that may be useful for future development of a new vaccine candidate against human TB. |
