Chordia et al. (2017) Can J Biotech 1(1): 44-49 doi: 10.24870/cjb.2017-000101 Canadian Journal of Biotechnology ISSN 2560-8304 ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER OPEN ACCESS 44 | Page Can J Biotech http://www.canadianjbiotech.com April 2017| Volume 01| Issue 01 © 2017 Chordia et al.; licensee Canadian Journal of Biotechnology. This is an open access article distributed as per the terms of Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Identification of Drug Target Properties and its validation on Helicobacter pylori Nikita Chordia, Kapil Lakhawat and Anil Kumar* School of Biotechnology, Devi Ahilya University, Khandwa Road, Indore 452001, INDIA Received: Oct 14, 2016; Revised: Jan 13, 2017; Accepted: Jan 24, 2017 Abstract An analysis of 472 proteins taken from the drug target database and considered as bacterial drug targets has been carried out. A number of sequential properties viz. length, molecular weight, hydrophobicity, cellular localization, transmembrane helices, glycosylation and signal peptide were determined. Based on these properties, a range was set for each property and it was considered that a protein can be a drug target if that protein property comes in the same range. To validate, the method was applied to Helicobacter pylori having 1602 proteins. The properties were calculated for proteins from H. pylori and the range was applied to find the drug target. After analysis of the whole proteome, 5 proteins have been found to have all the properties in the range. The results were cross checked and it has been found that the resultant proteins are also drug targets for other pathogens. It indicated that the sequential properties of successful target help in finding the new drug target for the pathogen. Keywords: Drug targets, Helicobacter pylori, Hydrophobicity, Sequence, Glycosylation, Transmembrane, Peptide, Pathogen Introduction Drug target is the macromolecule that interacts with the drug used to treat a disease. Most of the drug targets are proteins or nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). The protein drug targets mainly include enzymes, receptors, transporter proteins and ion channels proteins. The drug after interaction with the drug target either inhibits its activity or changes its conformation resulting in change in the function(s) of the target. The dysfunction of the target cures the disease either by killing or halting the growth of the pathogen. Therefore, drug target is considered to be much important to cure a disease [1]. Drug targets are not the disease causing but are considered as disease modifying molecules. Drug targets are classified into different classes and subclasses based on the activity. For example, oxidoreductase and ligases for enzymes, ligand gated ion channels and G protein coupled receptor for receptors, voltage gated ion channels and solute carriers for transporter proteins and many other classes/subclasses have been considered to be the potent drug targets [2]. For any drug discovery, drug target identification is a very crucial step and must be accurate as the whole process of drug discovery depends on the drug target [3]. There is a need for identification of drug targets for many arising diseases and also for the pathogens which acquire resistance to the current treatment. There are varieties of in silico methods that are used by many scientists to find the drug target. These methods find the drug target using the genome of the pathogen, metabolic pathways, virulence factors, etc. [4]. Barh et al. [5] predicted the drug targets for Cornebacterium pseudotuberculosis using genome analysis. Chordia et al. [6] determined the drug targets _____________________________ *Corresponding author: Email: ak_sbt@yahoo.com for Listeria monocytogenes using interactome analysis. Yadav et al. [7] showed the targetable virulence factors for pneumonia using bioinformatics tools. The other workers predicted drug targets for Helicobacter pylori using various in silico approaches [8, 9]. Here, we have developed a new method for identification of drug target that is based on the already available drug targets. This method is designed considering a view that identifying new targets based on already reported drug targets has higher chances of success. For a drug target, there must be certain properties that make it different from other proteins or molecules. These properties include molecular weight, sequence length, secondary structure (α-helix and β-sheet contents), transmembrane helices, hydrophobicity, sub- cellular localization, signal peptidase and glycosylation sites. In the present study, all these properties were calculated using available tools and were analyzed for all the reported drug targets. Based on the analysis, a criterion (range) was set for each property that must be present in a protein to be a drug target. Any protein having all the set properties can be considered as the drug target. The method developed has been applied on the proteins of H. pylori to find the potent drug targets. The H. pylori, also named as Campylobacter pylori, is a Gram-negative, microaerophilic bacterium which is colonized in the stomach. It is an infectious agent responsible for peptic ulcers, gastritis and gastric carcinoma [10]. The currently used drugs reduce the pain but do not fight against the H. pylori. Recently, Megraud et al. reported the development of antibiotic resistance of H. pylori against many antibiotics like clarithromycin, levofloxacin and many more [11]. Therefore, there is a need of the drug target specific for H. pylori to discover a drug that can fight against H. pylori to cure the disease.