Journal of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research (ISSN : 0975-7384)

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Original Articles: 2012 Vol: 4 Issue: 1

In silico analysis of protein vamp7 signatures involved in tetanus

Abstract

TETANUS which is more familiarly known as LOCKJAW is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. The disease is caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Grampositive, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani found mainly in free living form in soil. Infection generally occurs through wound contamination and often involves a cut or deep puncture wound. As the infection progresses, muscle spasms develop in the jaw (thus the name "lockjaw") and elsewhere in the body. The main emphasis of this in silico analysis was to find different genes expressed and proteins formed during the diseased condition in humans and to study the evolutionary relationships between the expressed proteins. Single out the group having a common ancestry so as to find out what common domains these proteins share that are functionally active during the disease and then to analyze these domains to find the motif patterns that are altered and modified in these diseased proteins. Our main aim was to identify these motif patterns and to analysis these to observe notable changes in the patterns of the proteins belonging to the same family so as to find the changes that occur in the structure of the proteins that are otherwise evolutionarily related. These patterns when identified could be used for the purpose of mutation studies, drug designing, pattern recognition and diagnostic purposes. After all the analysis of various proteins involved in TETANUS, we drew the inference that the conserved motif patterns with little variations are found in common domains of proteins VAMP7, VAMP3, VAMP2, hence this is the pattern that is altered and plays some role in the whole disease process. This could further be justified by doing various mutation studies. _____________________________________________________________________________________________