Novel drug attacks latent tuberculosis
Published by AWills March 17th, 2008 in Drug Development“New Chemical Can Kill Latent Tuberculosis,” Weill Cornell News, 13 March 2008.
A new drug tested by researchers at Weill Cornell inhibits the action of dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase (DlaT), a bacterial enzyme that is used to procure energy from nutrients and defend against oxidative damage. Dr. Carl Nathan, coauthor of the study published in Cell Host and Microbe, explains the importance of their research:
This new approach fights the pathogen in a way that’s different from conventional antibiotics. For what may be the first time, we have found compounds that only kill M. tuberculosis when they are not dividing. This lack of replication is a characteristic of latent bacteria, which are tough to eradicate with existing antibiotics and ultimately play a huge role in the epidemic’s spread.
The study [DOI link] and supplemental materials are freely available online.
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