author(s)
V Aruna Devi, M Vasanthi and K Kanagarajadurai

abstract
Among the various groups of pesticides that are being used world over, p-Nitro phenyl (pNP)-substituent Organophosphates (OPs) are acutely toxic and more extensively used group of pesticides. Organophosphorus hydrolase (OPH) is an enzyme involved in the hydrolysis of aromatic group of OPs pesticides. Thus, OPH is an extremely attractive biological component used in the biosensors for the detection of pNP substituent OPs concentration. The difference in the structural organisation of the OPH enzyme from different microbe will influences the catalytic activity of these enzymes. So, the rationale behind choosing specific microbial OPH enzyme as a biocomponent in the biosensors for the detection of pNP substituent OPs is not yet reported. The current study has been performed to predict the biocomponent based on sequence and structural analysis as well as modelling and docking studies of OPH enzymes. The correlation of binding energy with experimentally determined binding affinities is used for the validation of the docking approach. Based on the current in silico docking study, two microbial OPH enzymes from two different species are predicted to show high specificity for pNP substituent OPs group of pesticides. Thus, it may be recommended to use them as a biocomponent for the biosensors after experimentally validating them through in vitro and in vivo analysis.