The final experiment by the team was to test the MetAP inhibitors on TB bacteria in culture to see if it had any effect on bacteria growth.
"Judging from potency, a MetAP inhibibitor alone probably won't wipe out TB," Liu says. "TB is so hard to treat that the standard therapy involves a cocktail of multiple drugs; no single compound is powerful enough. Our hope is that someday an inhibitor of MetAP will become a new component to enhance the existing therapy."
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
In addition to Liu, authors of this paper are Omonike Olaleye, Tirumalai R. Raghunand, Shridhar Bhat, Sandeep Tyagi, Gyanu Lamichhane, Peihua Gu, Jiangbing Zhou, Ying Zhang, Jacques Grosset, and William R. Bishai, all of Johns Hopkins.
Jun Liu describes the job of the enzyme methionine aminopeptidase.
(Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine)
Jun Liu discusses the common thread in all his research.
(Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine)
Jun O. Liu, Ph.D., is a professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
(Photo Credit: Johns Hopkins Medicine)