Graph theoretic approach for metabolism disruption and developing a drug targeting methodology for the cure of tuberculosis

Various networks, such as transcriptional, gene regulatory, metabolic or protein-protein interaction networks of various organisms have been studied, which provide insights into metabolism and regulation. Here, we have attempted to construct the metabolic network of Mycobacterium tuberculosis wherein the fatty acid biosynthesis pathway was chosen for analysis of the potential drug targeting. The metabolic network was constructed based on the KEGG LIGAND database, followed by graph spectral analysis of the network to identify hubs as well as sub-clustering of the reactions. Analysis of the eigen values and spectrum of the normalized laplacian matrix of the reaction pathway indicate the enzyme catalyzing ACP – Acetyl ACP may considered as a potential drug target.