Despite the efficacy of antibiotics to protect humankind against many deadly pathogens, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, nothing can prevent the emergence of drug-resistant strains. Several mechanisms facilitate drug resistance in M. tuberculosis including compensatory evolution, epistasis, clonal interference, cell wall integrity, efflux pumps, and target mimicry. In this study, we present ...

The emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis is challenging tuberculosis control worldwide. In the absence of an effective vaccine to prevent primary infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and tuberculosis disease, host-directed therapies may offer therapeutic options, particularly for patients with multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis where prognosis is often limi...

Despite intensifi ed eff orts in recent years, tuberculosis is uncontrolled in many regions. 1 Although drug-susceptible tuberculosis is a treatable disease, the 6 month duration of therapy, often administered under daily direct observation, can result in poor outcomes because of the demands that this regimen places on patients and health systems. Therapy for multidrug-resistant (MDR) tuberculo...

BACKGROUND Mexico is one of the most important contributors of drug and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Latin America; however, knowledge of the genetic diversity of drug-resistant tuberculosis isolates is limited. METHODS In this study, the genetic structure of 112 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from the southeastern Mexico was determined by spoligotyping and 24-loci MIRU-VNTRs. FI...

Responsible for nearly two million deaths each year, the infectious disease tuberculosis remains a serious global health challenge. The emergence of multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis confounds control efforts, and new drugs with novel molecular targets are desperately needed. Here we describe lead compounds, the indoleamides, with potent activity ag...

background & objectives: although isoniazid is the most efficient in killing the tuberculosis bacilli, resistance to this drug also develops most readily. mutations in katg, inha and ahpc are responsible for isoniazid resistance in a large proportion of tuberculosis cases. the frequency of these mutations varies with population samples, however. this study provided the first molecular character...

Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis are recent global health issues, which makes tuberculosis - after the success of short course treatment during the second half of the last century - a major health challenge. Globalisation, health inequalities, competing economic interests and political instability contribute substantially to the spread of drug-resistant strains, w...

Background: With almost 9 million new cases each year, tuberculosis remains one of the most feared diseases on the planet. Led by the STOP-TB Partnership and WHO, recent efforts to combat the disease have made considerable progress in a number of countries. However, the emergence of mutated strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that are resistant to the major antituberculosis drugs poses a dead...

Conventional phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) methods for Mycobacterium tuberculosis are laborious and very time-consuming. Early detection of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is essential for prevention and control of TB transmission. We have developed a pyrosequencing method for simultaneous detection of mutations associated with resistance to rifampin, isoniazid, ethambutol, amik...

OBJECTIVE This study represents an early attempt to determine the diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Egypt, particularly of drug-resistant strains. METHODS We characterized 45 Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex isolates from sputum samples of Egyptian patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, in order to establish a database of strain types and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns. RES...