WG-CRISPRi screening in M. tuberculosis pressure mc26206. Credit score: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54072-w
A College of Otago-led research has discovered a extremely weak weak point in drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis, providing new potentialities for remedy.
Within the research, printed in Nature Communications, researchers developed a genetic platform to determine organic pathways in a drug-resistant pressure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that’s extremely delicate to inhibition.
Senior creator Dr. Matthew McNeil, of Otago’s Division of Microbiology and Immunology, says the expertise enabled them to search out the pathogen’s weak level, “essentially its Achilles heel.”
“We were then able to identify drugs that target these weaknesses and can rapidly kill these drug-resistant strains. While our work specifically focuses on Mycobacterium tuberculosis—the leading global cause of infectious disease morbidity, overtaking COVID-19 in 2024—this technology can be applied to other drug-resistant pathogens,” he says.
Dr. McNeil describes these pathogens as a “major public health problem.”
“There are often limited treatment options for people infected with drug-resistant pathogens and there is a very real threat that they could affect the success of many otherwise standard medical procedures.”
He believes novel developments, comparable to these on this research, are wanted to take care of them.
“New treatment strategies are needed that can not only rapidly kill these pathogens but prevent them from occurring in the first place. Drug-resistant infections are scary, but if we think outside the box when it comes to designing new drugs, there are ways in which we can find actionable solutions to stop this problem.”
Extra data:
XinYue Wang et al, Entire genome CRISPRi screening identifies druggable vulnerabilities in an isoniazid resistant pressure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54072-w
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College of Otago
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Genetic platform identifies ‘Achilles heel’ of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (2024, November 13)
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