Rifapentine for the treatment of latent tuberculosis

Recent efforts in the development of glycoconjugate vaccine and available treatment for tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to pose a grave threat to global health, despite relentless eradication efforts. In 1882, Robert Koch discovered that Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the bacterium responsible for causing tuberculosis. It is a fact that tuberculosis has claimed the lives of more than one billion people in the last few decades. It is imperative that we must take immediate and effective action to increase resources for TB research and treatment. Effective TB treatments demand an extensive investment of both time and finances, often requiring 6-9 months of rigorous antibiotic therapy. The most efficient way to control tuberculosis is by receiving a childhood Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination. Despite years of research on vaccine development, we still do not have any new approved vaccine for tuberculosis, except BCG, which is partially effective in young children. This review discusses briefly the available treatment for tuberculosis and remarkable advancements in glycoconjugate-based TB vaccine developments in recent years (2013-2024) and offers valuable direction for future research priorities.

Application of metabolomics to drug discovery and understanding the mechanisms of action of medicinal plants with anti-tuberculosis activity

Human tuberculosis (TB) is amongst the oldest and deadliest human bacterial diseases that pose major health, social and economic burden at a global level. Current regimens for TB treatment are lengthy, expensive and ineffective to emerging drug resistant strains. Thus, there is an urgent need for identification and development of novel TB drugs and drug regimens with comprehensive and specific mechanisms of action. Many medicinal plants are traditionally used for TB treatment. While some of their phytochemical composition has been elucidated, their mechanisms of action are not well understood. Insufficient knowledge on Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) biology and the complex nature of its infection limit the effectiveness of current screening-based methods used for TB drug discovery. Nonetheless, application of metabolomics tools within the 'omics' approaches, could provide an alternative method of elucidating the mechanism of action of medicinal plants. Metabolomics aims at high throughput detection, quantification and identification of metabolites in biological samples. Changes in the concentration of specific metabolites in a biological sample indicate changes in the metabolic pathways. In this paper review and discuss novel methods that involve application of metabolomics to drug discovery and the understanding of mechanisms of action of medicinal plants with anti-TB activity. Current knowledge on TB infection, anti-TB drugs and mechanisms of action are also included. We further highlight metabolism of M. tuberculosis and the potential drug targets, as well as current approaches in the development of anti-TB drugs.