Soon, a new therapy to combat tuberculosis

Scientists have paved the way for the development of new drug therapies for tuberculosis by characterising the unique structure and mechanism of an enzyme in the bacterium that causes the disease.

"The NAD+ synthetase enzyme that our study describes is absolutely essential for the survival of the tuberculosis bacteria and an important drug target.

"We can now use the information we have about its structure and mechanism to develop inhibitors for this enzyme," according to Barbara Gerratana, who led a team at Maryland University.

The study's findings have been published in 'Nature Structural & Molecular Biology' journal. In fact, the development of new drugs to combat TB has become urgent, as strains of TB resistant to all major anti-TB drugs have emerged worldwide.

According to other leading TB researchers, these new findings from Gerratana and her colleagues will be extremely valuable for the design of structure-based inhibitors specific for M tuberculosis NAD+ synthetase and may lead to the development of new drugs to combat and eliminate the disease.