Background:
Neisseria meningitidis is considered as a dangerous pathogen threatening human health.
Nowadays, the new drug target is focused. Toxin antitoxin (TA) system is recently identified as an antimicrobial
drug target. Also, in N. meningitidis, iron-uptake system could be an interesting target for drug discovery.
Methods:
In this study, fbpA and mazE genes were chosen as new antimicrobial targets and treated with antisense
peptide nucleic acid (PNA). Firstly, they were evaluated by bioinformatics and then analyzed by experimental
procedures. Secondly, the functionality was evaluated by stress conditions.
Results:
Our results interestingly demonstrated that when fbpA and mazE loci of N. meningitidis were targeted by
antisense PNA, 8 µM concentration of fbpA-PNA as well as 30 µM concentration of mazE-PNA inhibited the
growth of N. meningitides and were found to be bacteriostatic, whereas 10 μM concentration of fbpA-PNA
showed bacteriocidal activity.
Conclusion:
Our findings demonstrated the bactriocidal activity of fbpA-PNA and bacteriostatic activity of mazEPNA.
Therefore, mazE and fbpA genes should be potent antimicrobial targets but further analysis including in
vivo analysis should be performed.
The development of species-specific antisense peptide nucleic acid method for the treatment and detection of viable Salmonella
