Life Sciences & Biotechnology

This invention relates to synthesis and targeting of a novel nucleotide based gene silencing drug against T.B. microbial pathogen Mycobacterium species. It involves the design of Antisense-oligonucleotide complementary to the specific region of peptide deformylase gene from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The use of this Antisense-oligonucleotide on mycobacterial culture inhibits the production of the peptide deformylase enzyme by hybridizing within the region, which is found to be responsible for maintaining stability as well as retaining the functionality of the enzyme and thus in turn affecting the growth of the cells. This invention also establishes the essentiality and validates the peptide deformylase enzyme in mycobacteria as a potential drug target for new mycobacterial antibiotics. So far bacterial peptide deformylase inhibitors are based on enzyme active site. However, in this case, the target is away from the active site.