Patent ID: 8577624

Claim:
A method of identifying a potential inhibitor of a type III P-type ATPase by determining binding interactions between the potential inhibitor and a set of binding interaction sites in the proton transport pathway of said ATPase, the method comprising: obtaining a crystal of a type III P-type ATPase of an amino acid sequence of residues 1-875 of SEQ ID NO: 1 fused at its C-terminus to the amino acids of SEQ ID NO: 34, the crystal being of space group P2 1 2 1 2 1 ; with unit cell dimensions in which: a is 85±4Å, b is 144±4Å, c is 312±4Å, and α is 90°, β is 90°, γ is 90°; and determining the three-dimensional structure to obtain the atomic coordinates of this crystal as presented in FIG. 13 or atomic coordinates selected from a three-dimensional structure that deviates from the three-dimensional structure as presented in FIG. 13 by a root mean square deviation over protein backbone atoms of not more than 3 Å; generating the spatial structure of the proton transport pathway on a computer screen using atomic coordinates as presented in FIG. 13 or atomic coordinates selected from a three-dimensional structure that deviates from the three-dimensional structure as presented in FIG. 13 by a root mean square deviation over protein backbone atoms of not more than 3 Å, generating the spatial structure of potential inhibitors on the computer screen, and selecting as a potential inhibitor a compound that can bind to the proton transfer pathway without steric interference.