Exploring Potential Drug Targets in Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 Through Computational Analysis

Finding potential drug targets by analyzing the genomic data is an essential step in developing potential therapeutics against malaria parasites. In this work, we focused on the 2,670 essential genes listed in the Database of Essential Genes (DEG) to discover possible therapeutic targets in Plasmodium falciparum 3D7. There are several screening methods such as the BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) algorithm to identify the human non-homologous essential genes of the parasite. Further, the genes obtained were searched in the Panther database and were analyzed for their metabolic pathways in the Kyoto Encyclopedia for Gene and Genome (KEGG) database. Five key genes were identified from the above analysis. A subsequent search of the DrugBank database revealed that no existing (approved or experimental) drug molecules for the enzyme pyridoxal 5'-phosphate synthase subunit (pdx2) are available. Further prediction of the protein-protein interaction network, along with the literature report, indicated that the enzyme pdx2 plays a pivotal role in the biosynthesis of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) in the parasite.