New Tb drug could be a ‘gamechanger’
A POWERFUL new drug, and new University of Otago research into how it works, could prove a ‘‘total gamechanger’’ in the global fight against tuberculosis, Prof Greg Cook says.
Tuberculosis is the world’s biggest infectious disease killer, causing about 1.7 million deaths each year, and drugresistant Tb cases are rising.
Prof Cook, of the University of Otago microbiology and immunology department, said researchers had discovered a novel property of a new antituberculosis drug, Bedaquiline, which could also help develop more drugs to treat tuberculosis.
‘‘Our lab is actively searching for new Tb drugs to complement Bedaquiline and expand the treatment options available to clinicians worldwide,’’ he said.
Prof Cook and postdoctoral fellow Dr Kiel Hards have been investigating the drug.
Bedaquiline was the first new drug to be developed after 40 years of searching for more effective drugs that combat Tb and was FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approved only in 2012, Prof Cook said.
The drug, inhibits the synthesis of ATP, a high energy molecule, which powers the cells of M. tuberculosis, the bacterial pathogen which cau ses tuberculosis.
Dr Hards said the new drug’s most promising features were its ability to shorten the treatment timeframe, in some drugresistant cases, from about two years to only eight weeks, and that its target was ‘‘unconventional for an antimicrobial’’.
Apart from disrupting energy production, the drug also affected the movement of ions across the bacterial mem brane, ‘‘resulting in the dissipating of critical ion gradients needed for growth and survival’’, Dr Hards said.
Prof Cook said this latter finding by Otago researchers could help explain the mystery of how the drug could also kill nonreplicating M. tuberculosis cells.
The finding could also have ramifications for other antibiotics, as many other antibiotics could also work by this mechanism.
The ‘‘biological electricity’’ these ions normally created ‘‘held the key to energy generation and a whole series of other incredibly important cellular processes’’, he said.
The Otagoled research was recently published in the international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.