A new experimental antibiotic for tuberculosis (TB) may be more effective than isoniazid, a decades-old drug which is currently one of the standard treatments for the disease, a study claims.
In mouse models, the drug showed a much lower tendency to develop resistance, according to the study published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
The drug remains in the tissues where the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria reside for longer, killing them more effectively.
"The goal of TB drug development programmes is to develop universal treatment regimens that will shorten and simplify TB treatment in patients, which typically takes at least six months, and sometimes more than a year," said Gregory T Robertson, an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the US.
The new drug, called AN12855, has several advantages over isoniazid, which requires conversion to its active form by a Mycobacterial enzyme, KatG, in order to kill the pathogen.
This creates a couple of problems. First, in some M tuberculosis, KatG is nonfunctional. That does not make M tuberculosis any less pathogenic, but it prevents the drug from working.
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That creates an easy avenue for the development of drug resistance, researchers said.
Under selection pressure from isoniazid, the tuberculosis bacteria with nonfunctional KatG -- those that do not activate the drug -- are the ones that reproduce. Under these circumstances, drug resistance may develop.
A hallmark of human tuberculosis is the presence of "heterogeneous pulmonary disease."
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