Pyrazinamide

Pyrazinamide is a medication used to treat tuberculosis.^[1] For active tuberculosis, it is often used with rifampicin, isoniazid, and either streptomycin or ethambutol.^[2] It is not generally recommended for the treatment of latent tuberculosis.^[1] See also Pyrazinamide.

Pyrazinamide diffuses into the granuloma of M. tuberculosis, where the tuberculosis enzyme pyrazinamidase converts pyrazinamide to the active form pyrazinoic acid.^[3] Under acidic conditions of pH 5 to 6, the pyrazinoic acid that slowly leaks out converts to the protonated conjugate acid, which is thought to diffuse easily back into the bacilli and accumulate. The net effect is that more pyrazinoic acid accumulates inside the bacillus at acid pH than at neutral pH.^[3][4]

Drug resistance mechanism of PncA in Mycobacterium Tuberculosis^[5]

Tuberculosis continues to be a global health threat. is an important first-line drug in multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment. The emergence of strains resistant to pyrazinamide represents an important public health problem, as both first- and second-line treatment regimens include pyrazinamide. It becomes toxic to Mycobacterium tuberculosis when converted to pyrazinoic acid by the . PZA resistance is caused mainly by the loss of enzyme activity by mutation, the mechanism of resistance is not completely understood. In our studies, we analysed three mutations (D8G, S104R and C138Y) of PncA which are resistance for PZA. Binding pocket analysis solvent accessibility analysis, molecular docking and interaction analysis were performed to understand the interaction behaviour of mutant enzymes with PZA. Molecular dynamics simulations were conducted to understand the three dimensional conformational behaviour of and mutants PncA. Our analysis clearly indicates that the mutation (, and ) in PncA is responsible for rigid binding cavity which in turns abolishes conversion of PZA to its active form and is the sole reason for PZA resistance. Excessive hydrogen bonding between PZA binding cavity residues and their neighboring residues are the reason of rigid binding cavity during simulation. We present an exhaustive analysis of the binding-site flexibility and its 3D conformations that may serve as new starting points for structure-based drug design and helps there researchers to design new inhibitor with consideration of rigid criterion of binding residues due to mutation of this essential target.