Abstract
Chitosan is a naturally occurring component of certain bacterial and fungal cell walls. If some groups of medically and agriculturally significant fungi contain chitosan, chitosan metabolism represents attractive drug targets specific to those fungal systems. Recently, structure-based drug design emerges as a powerful technique in drug screening. The process initially requires three dimensional structure of a target molecule. Because the bacterialStreptomyces lividans N174 chitosanase is only one chitosanase whose X-ray structure has been solved, we begin the process of structure-based drug design with the bacterial enzyme but it should be extended to a fungal one. In order to initiate the process, a preliminary lead-drug was screened by automated computer search from chemical databases. The 5-nitro-isatin showed an inhibitory effect by 50% at 1.5 mM on theStreptomyces lividans N174 chitosanase.
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Kim, Y., Park, Y., Marcotte et al. Automated screen of a preliminary lead-drug for chitosanase drug design. Biotechnol. Bioprocess Eng. 2, 38–42 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02932461
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02932461