Identification of potential drug targets in Yersinia pestis using metabolic pathway analysis: MurE ligase as a case study

► Compared all the metabolic pathways of humans and plague pathogen Yersinia pestis. ► Identified 245 potential drug targets in the pathogen (25 metabolic choke points). ► Targets are not homologs of human proteins and are vital for bacterium's survival. ► Structure of MurE ligase, a choke point enzyme and ideal drug target, was modeled. ► Model used to identify potential lead molecule through docking studies.