Modo de ação da enzima recombinante hipoxantina-guanina fosforribosiltransferase (EC 2.4.2.8) de Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused mainly by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The increasing number of infected patients among immune compromised populations and emergence of drug-resistant strains has created urgent need of new strategies to treat TB. Understanding relevant pathways (as the purine salvage) will reveal details of M. tuberculosis that might be used to develop new strategies to combat this pathogen. Hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HGPRT) is an enzyme from the purine phosphoribosyltransferase (PRTase) family and catalyzes the conversion of hypoxanthine or guanine and 5-phosphoribosyl-α-1-pyrophosphate (PRPP) to inosine 5 -monophosphate (IMP) or guanosine 5 -monophosphate (GMP), and pyrophosphate (PPi). Here we describe the mode of action of M. tuberculosis HGPRT (MtHGPRT) through kinetic and thermodynamical analysis. Experiments were also performed to determine the oligomeric state in solution, pH, temperature and solvent isotope effects. These data allows us to compare MtHGPRT to homologues from other species and look for similarities and differences in its mechanism and constants. We hope the experiments presented here will contribute to the understanding of this pathogen purine salvage pathway.