Informatics resources for tuberculosis - Towards drug discovery

Integration of biological data on gene sequence, genome annotation, gene expression, metabolic pathways, protein structure, drug target prioritization and selection, has resulted in several online bioinformatics databases and tools for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Alongside there has been a growth in the list of cheminformatics databases for small molecules and tools to facilitate drug discovery. In spite of these efforts there is a noticeable lag in the drug discovery process which is an urgent need in the case of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. For example, more than 25 online databases are available freely for tuberculosis and yet these resources have not been exploited optimally. Informatics-centered drug discovery based on the integration and analysis of both bioinformatics and cheminformatics data could fill in the gap and help to accelerate the process of drug discovery. This article aims to review the current standing of developments in tuberculosis-bioinformatics and highlight areas where integration of existing resources could lead to acceleration of drug discovery against tuberculosis. Such an approach could be adapted for other diseases as well.