Washington, Jun 19:
Scientists have developed a new drug that cripples the tuberculosis bug
by dissolving its protective fatty coating, a finding that could
eventually be used to improve TB treatment.
TB is caused by infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis
(Mtb) and is the second biggest cause of death worldwide, second only to
HIV/AIDS, researchers said.
With drug-resistant strains of Mtb on the rise, there is a critical need
for more effective anti—TB agents, Scientists at the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), New Jersey Medical School,
said.
“Mtb is a little ball of soap,” says lead author David Alland, a
professor of medicine and Director of the Center for Emerging and
Re-emerging Pathogens at New Jersey Medical School, describing the
mesh-work of long fatty acids that make up the bug’s protective cell
wall.
There are a few anti-TB drugs that disrupt this coat, but so far no single drug has been able to kill the bacteria completely.
His group went in search of new and better drugs by using a simple and
rapid approach. They screened for agents that trigger expression of a
bacterial gene that gets turned on when cell wall synthesis is
compromised.
They discovered a class of compound called thiophenes that killed the Mtb in culture without the emergence of drug resistance.
And the combination of thiophene and the existing coat-busting drug isoniazid achieved 100 per cent bacterial killing.
Thiophenes worked by crippling an enzyme called Pks13 that hitches two
long fatty acids together to create the bug’s fatty coat.
With additional information on the molecular structure of these drugs
bound to Pks13, Alland hopes to discover ways to tweak the compounds to
make them even more potent and less toxic.
The study was published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/science/scientists-develop-new-tuberculosis-drug/article4830271.ece
