Discovery of Selective Inhibitors of Imidazoleglycerol-Phosphate Dehydratase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Virtual Screening

Bacterial imidazoleglycerol-phosphate dehydratase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (HisB-Mt) is a convenient target for the discovery of selective inhibitors as potential antituberculosis drugs. The virtual screening was performed to find compounds suitable for the design of selective inhibitors of HisB-Mt. The positions of four ligands, which were selected based on the docking scoring function and docked to the activesite region of the enzyme, were refined by molecular dynamics simulation. The nearest environment of the ligands was determined. These compounds selectively bind to functionally essential active-site residues, thus blocking access of substrates to the active site of the enzyme, and can be used as lead compounds for the design of selective inhibitors of HisB-M.