There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), Mycobacterium tuberculosis and more recently
totally drug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis, display unique mechanisms to survive
in the host. A four-drug treatment regimen was introduced 40 years ago but the emergence
of multidrug-resistance and more recently TDR necessitates the identification of new
targets and drugs for the cure of M. tuberculosis infection. The current efforts in
the drug development process are insufficient to completely eradicate the TB epidemic.
For almost five decades the TB drug development process remained stagnant. The last
10 years have made sudden progress giving some new and highly promising drugs including
bedaquiline, delamanid, and pretomanid. Many of the candidates are repurposed compounds,
which were developed to treat other infections but later, exhibited anti-TB properties
also. Each class of drug has a specific target and a definite mode of action. These
targets are either involved in cell wall biosynthesis, protein synthesis, DNA/RNA
synthesis, or metabolism. This review discusses recent progress in the discovery of
newly developed and Food and Drug Administration approved drugs as well as repurposed
drugs, their targets, mode of action, drug-target interactions, and their structure-activity
relationship.