A New Screen for Tuberculosis Drug Candidates Utilizing a Luciferase-Expressing Recombinant Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Gueren.

ABSTRACT: Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious infectious disease caused by a bacterial pathogen. Mortality from tuberculosis was estimated at 1.5 million deaths worldwide in 2013. Development of new TB drugs is needed to not only to shorten the medication period but also to treat multi-drug resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) grows slowly and only multiplies once or twice per day. Therefore, conventional drug screening takes more than 3 weeks. Additionally, a biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) facility is required. Thus, we developed a new screening method to identify TB drug candidates by utilizing luciferase-expressing recombinant Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guéren (rBCG). Using this method, we identified several candidates in 4 days in a non-BSL-3 facility. W

SUBMITTER: Ozeki Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4646695 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature