RESEARCH ARTICLE
Homology Modeling and Prediction of Catalytic Amino Acid in the Neurotoxin from Indian Cobra (Naja naja)
Pallavi Somvanshi*, Vijai Singh
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 97
Last Page: 102
Publisher ID: TOBIOIJ-2-97
DOI: 10.2174/1875036200802010097
Article History:
Received Date: 05/10/2008Revision Received Date: 20/11/2008
Acceptance Date: 21/11/2008
Electronic publication date: 31/12/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The neurotoxin secreted by Indian cobra (Naja naja) binds to acetylcholine receptor of nerve cells, which leads to a lump in the nerve impulse, ceases breathing, thereby causing the death of a person due to suffocation. These neurotoxins are small peptide with approximately 7 kDa. Homology modeling was performed to generate the 3D structure of neurotoxins (A, B, C and D) of N. naja, using the known protein template crystal structure (PDB: 2CTX). The validation of 3D structure was done using PROCHECK. Furthermore, the prediction of catalytic amino acid residues in the active site domain of the 3-D structure of neurotoxin was identified. The 3-D structures of neurotoxin and catalytic amino acid residue may be used to target and design the antivenom drugs against the Indian cobra.