Zeitschrift für Informatik und Systembiologie

Functional Analysis of Hypothetical Proteins of Chlamydia Trachomatis: A Bioinformatics Based Approach for Prioritizing the Targets

Abstract

Prashant K Mishra, Subash C Sonkar, Sree Rohit Raj, Uma Chaudhry and Daman Saluja

The various genome sequencing projects have led to the accumulation of entire set of gene sequences of many organisms. Among the sequenced genomes are numerous genes which code for proteins of unknown function. These genes are termed as hypothetical genes and their corresponding gene products are known as Hypothetical Proteins (HPs). Analyzing and annotating the functions of these HPs is important in pathogenic organisms such as Chlamydia trachomatis that causes various sequelae of diseases by infecting different sites in humans. Functional annotations of these HPs provides insights into their exact molecular function and may help in identification of novel drug or vaccine candidates for the control of infections caused by C. trachomatis. In the present study, entire set of 336 HPs of C. trachomatis were retrieved from NCBI and analyzed for their function using bioinformatics tools such as CDD-BLAST, PFAM, TIGRFAM and SCANPROSITE. The analysis revealed that some of the HPs possessed functionally important domains like protease, ligase, synthase, translocase and zinc finger domain. Some of the hypothetical proteins were found to be similar to transcriptional regulators while others were homologous to chaperonins. A few of the HPs corresponded to the bacterial secretory pathway proteins. The structural prediction of the annotated proteins has been performed which further substantiate the functional characterization results. Bioinformatics approach used in this study, including sophisticated sequence analysis, domain characterization and structural prediction studies, can provide a useful lead to experimentally annotate and corroborate these studies. Data generated by this study might facilitate swift identification of potential therapeutic targets and thereby enabling the search for new inhibitors or vaccines.