Publications

Systematic measurement of combination-drug landscapes to predict in vivo treatment outcomes for tuberculosis.

Date Published: November 17, 2021
Lengthy multidrug chemotherapy is required to achieve a durable cure in tuberculosis. However, we lack well-validated, high-throughput in vitro models that predict animal outcomes. Here, we provide an extensible approach to rationally prioritize combination therapies for testing in in vivo mouse models of tuberculosis. We systematically measured Mycobacterium tuberculosis response to all…

Model-Based Exposure-Response Assessment for Spectinamide 1810 in a Mouse Model of Tuberculosis.

Date Published: October 18, 2021
Despite decades of research, tuberculosis remains a leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. Spectinamides are a promising novel class of antituberculosis agents, and the lead spectinamide 1810 has demonstrated excellent efficacy, safety, and drug-like properties in numerous and assessments in mouse models of tuberculosis. In the current…

Comparative Analysis of Pharmacodynamics in the C3HeB/FeJ Mouse Tuberculosis Model for DprE1 Inhibitors TBA-7371, PBTZ169, and OPC-167832.

Date Published: October 18, 2021
Multiple drug discovery initiatives for tuberculosis are currently ongoing to identify and develop new potent drugs with novel targets in order to shorten treatment duration. One of the drug classes with a new mode of action is DprE1 inhibitors targeting an essential process in cell wall synthesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Nutrition, Inflammation, and the Gut Microbiota among Outpatients with Active Tuberculosis Disease in India.

Date Published: October 18, 2021
India has the highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) globally and a high prevalence of malnutrition; however, the interplay between host nutritional status, inflammation, and the gut microbiome in active tuberculosis disease (ATBD) is less well-studied. We examined differences in gut microbial composition and diversity based on undernutrition and inflammation status…

Preclinical Evaluation of Inhalational Spectinamide-1599 Therapy against Tuberculosis.

Date Published: October 8, 2021
The lengthy treatment time for tuberculosis (TB) is a primary cause for the emergence of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). One approach to improve TB therapy is to develop an inhalational TB therapy that when administered in combination with oral TB drugs eases and shortens treatment. Spectinamides are new semisynthetic analogues…

Lesion Penetration and Activity Limit the Utility of Second-Line Injectable Agents in Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

Date Published: September 17, 2021
Amikacin and kanamycin are second-line injectables used in the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) based on the clinical utility of streptomycin, another aminoglycoside and first-line anti-TB drug. While streptomycin was tested as a single agent in the first controlled TB clinical trial, introduction of amikacin and kanamycin into MDR-TB regimens…

Single cell analysis of M. tuberculosis phenotype and macrophage lineages in the infected lung.

Date Published: September 6, 2021
In this study, we detail a novel approach that combines bacterial fitness fluorescent reporter strains with scRNA-seq to simultaneously acquire the host transcriptome, surface marker expression, and bacterial phenotype for each infected cell. This approach facilitates the dissection of the functional heterogeneity of M. tuberculosis-infected alveolar (AMs) and interstitial macrophages…

Genetic models of latent tuberculosis in mice reveal differential influence of adaptive immunity.

Date Published: September 6, 2021
Studying latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection has been limited by the lack of a suitable mouse model. We discovered that transient depletion of biotin protein ligase (BPL) and thioredoxin reductase (TrxB2) results in latent infections during which Mtb cannot be detected but that relapse in a subset of mice. The…
Courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine