A major reason that curing tuberculosis requires prolonged treatment is that drug exposure changes bacterial phenotypes. The physiologic adaptations of that survive drug exposure have been obscure due to low sensitivity of existing methods in drug-treated animals. Using the novel SEARCH-TB RNA-seq platform, we elucidated phenotypes in mice treated for…
Tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) is essentially treated with the first-line regimen used against pulmonary tuberculosis, with a prolonged continuation phase. However, clinical outcomes are poor in comparison, for reasons that are only partially understood, highlighting the need for improved preclinical tools to measure drug distribution and activity at the site of…
Contezolid is a new oxazolidinone with and activity against comparable to that of linezolid. Pre-clinical and clinical safety studies suggest it may be less toxic than linezolid, making contezolid a potential candidate to replace linezolid in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. We evaluated the dose-ranging activity of contezolid, alone and…
BTZ-043, a suicide inhibitor of the cell wall synthesis decaprenylphosphoryl-beta-D-ribose 2′ epimerase, is under clinical development as a potential new anti-tuberculosis agent. BTZ-043 is potent and bactericidal but has limited activity against non-growing bacilli in rabbit caseum. To better understand its behavior , BTZ-043 was evaluated for efficacy and spatial…
New drugs to treat tuberculosis which target intractable bacterial populations are required to develop shorter and more effective treatment regimens. The benzene amide ether scaffold has activity against intracellular , but low activity against extracellular, actively replicating . We determined that these molecules have bactericidal activity against non-replicating but not…
Tuberculosis lung lesions are complex and harbor heterogeneous microenvironments that influence antibiotic effectiveness. Major strides have been made recently in understanding drug pharmacokinetics in pulmonary lesions, but the bacterial phenotypes that arise under these conditions and their contribution to drug tolerance are poorly understood. A pharmacodynamic marker called the RS…
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and its phosphorylated derivative (NADP) are essential cofactors that participate in hundreds of biochemical reactions and have emerged as therapeutic targets in cancer, metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, and infections, including tuberculosis. The biological basis for the essentiality of NAD(P) in most settings, however, remains experimentally unexplained.
Mouse models are critical tools in tuberculosis (TB) research. Recent studies have demonstrated that the wild mouse gut microbiota promotes host fitness and improves disease resistance. Here we examine whether the wild mouse gut microbiota alters the immunopathology of TB in BALB/c mice. Conventional BALB/c mice (LabC) and mice born…
