The present invention discloses functional nitrite reductase as a potential drug target for anti-tubercular drug development. The present invention also relates to the development of an easy method for identification of nitrite in clinical samples as well as its correlation with the severity of the disease. Presence of active as well as dormant/latent stages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) could be identified from nitrite in clinical samples like sputum of potential TB patients.

A novel combinatorial and high-throughput platform that enables rapid screening of complex and heterogeneous copolymer brushes as enzyme immobilization supports named Combinatorial High-throughput Enzyme Support Screening (CHESS). Using a 384 well-plate format, we synthesized arrays of three-component polymer brushes in the microwells using photo-activated surface-initiated polymerization, and immobilized enzymes in situ. The utility of CHESS to identify optimal immobilization supports under thermally and chemically denaturing conditions was demonstrated using Bacillus subtilis Lipase A (LipA). The identification of supports with optimal compositions was validated by immobilizing LipA on polymer-brush modified biocatalyst particles. We further demonstrated that CHESS could be used to predict the optimal composition of polymer brushes a priori for the previously unexplored enzyme, alkaline phosphatase (AlkP). Our findings demonstrate that CHESS represents a predictable and reliable platform for dramatically accelerating the search of chemical compositions for immobilization supports and further facilitate the discovery of biocompatible and stabilizing materials.