Structural genomics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis:: A search for function and new drug targets

Structural genomics initiatives have various goals: from the discovery of new folds to providing representative structures for all protein families, to the discovery of function from structure, and the characterization of new drug targets. The TB Structural Genomics Consortium (TBSGC), an international collaboration of more than 50 laboratories, was formed to address the worldwide problem of TB, through its focus on Mycobacteriurn tuberculosis, the causative agent. The goals are to characterize new drug targets and to gain a deeper understanding of TB biology. The project has now entered a very productive phase, with more than one third of the genes cloned, many proteins purified, and more than 100 structures determined. Some of these are for already-validated drug targets. Others have led to new functional understanding of important processes in the biology of the organism, providing validation of the structure-to-function paradigm.