PA-824 drug effective against Tuberculosis

Researchers from NIH lab, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have found the mechanism of action of the new drug PA-824 which is found to be highly effective in controlling tuberculosis, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Researchers have found that the drug PA-824 is very effective in very short doses of anti-tuberculosis regimen and is found to kill both the actively dividing and slow dividing Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, where by it controls both the active and latent form of the disease. The researchers have also found the proteins responsible for the emergence of resistant forms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis which was found to be resistant to PA-824. The researchers sequenced the entire genome of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis to find the mutations in the Mycobacterium tuberculosis leading to loss of two proteins FGD1 and F420 or changes in these proteins which is responsible to the resistance of the bacterium to the drug PA-824.