Strategies for drug target identification in Mycobacterium leprae.

Hansen's disease (HD), or leprosy, continues to be endemic in many parts of the world. Although multidrug therapy (MDT) is successful in curing a large number of patients, some of them abandon it because it is a long-term treatment. Therefore, identification of new drug targets in Mycobacterium leprae is considered of high importance. Here, we introduce an overview of in silico and in vitro studies that might be of help in this endeavor. The essentiality of M. leprae proteins is reviewed with discussion of flux balance analysis, gene expression, and knockout articles. Finally, druggability techniques are proposed for the validation of new M. leprae protein targets. Teaser: How to identify new therapeutic targets for leprosy with limited structural data for Mycobacterium leprae? A step-by-step approach with a combination of in silico and in vitro experiments.