Instruct: Identify the main category of Biorxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: Identification of enzymes that are required for Rhodoquinone-dependent metabolism as targets for new species-specific inhibitors Soil transmitted helminths (STHs) are major human pathogens that infect over a billion people. Resistance to current anthelmintics is rising and new drugs are needed. Here we combine multiple approaches to find druggable targets that are essential for RQ-dependent metabolism, an unusual form of anaerobic metabolism which STHs need to survive in their host. We identified 25 genes predicted to act in RQ-dependent metabolism from sensing hypoxia to RQ synthesis -- this includes components of the kynurenine pathway we previously showed to be essential for RQ synthesis (Del Borrello et al., 2019). We found 9 genes to be required -- since all have host orthologues, we used comparative genomics and structural modeling to identify those with helminth-specific active sites and found 4 such targets. These 4 high confidence targets open up the possibility of in silico screens to identify STH-specific inhibitors of these enzymes as new anthelmintics.
19
The categories of this paper are: epidemiology
10
The categories of this paper are: and
5
The categories of this paper are: cell
27
The categories of this paper are: pathology
9
The categories of this paper are: synthetic
20
The categories of this paper are: pharmacology
29
The categories of this paper are: education
13
The categories of this paper are: animal
32
The categories of this paper are: zoology
18
The categories of this paper are: systems
14
The categories of this paper are: biophysics
21
The categories of this paper are: toxicology
15
The categories of this paper are: developmental
11
The categories of this paper are: cognition
26
The categories of this paper are: biochemistry
7
The categories of this paper are: ecology