New perspectives for TB treatment
© 2011 par Sanofi Pasteur
Pyrazinamide - old TB drug finds new target.
More than 60 years after the discovery of pyrazinamide (PZA), a drug that is a mainstay of combination therapy for tuberculosis (TB), researchers have finally uncovered a mechanism of action that is convincing and novel. Prof. Stewart Cole (UPCOL - Chair of Microbial Pathogenesis) comment (Science Perspective) on resent finding by Shi et al. showing that PZA inhibits trans-translation, a key cellular process for managing damaged proteins and “rescuing” nonfunctioning ribosomes, in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The finding identifies a potentially promising target for new drugs.
Stewart T. Cole Science Vol. 333 no. 6049 pp. 1583-1584 DOI: 10.1126/science.1212450 (2011)