The relevance of persisters in tuberculosis drug discovery

• Published in: Microbiology (Society for General Microbiology) Vol. 165; no. 5; pp. 492 - 499
• Main Authors: Mandal, Soma, Njikan, Samuel, Kumar, Anuradha, Early, Julie V, Parish, Tanya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 01-05-2019
• Subjects: Animals; Antitubercular Agents - pharmacology; Drug Discovery; Humans; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - drug effects; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - genetics; Mycobacterium tuberculosis - physiology; Tuberculosis - drug therapy; Tuberculosis - microbiology; persistence; drug discovery; non-replicating organisms; antibiotics; mycobacteria; tuberculosis
• ISSN: 1350-0872; 1465-2080
• DOI: 10.1099/mic.0.000760

Bacterial persisters are a subpopulation of cells that exhibit phenotypic resistance during exposure to a lethal dose of antibiotics. They are difficult to target and thought to contribute to the long treatment duration required for tuberculosis. Understanding the molecular and cellular biology of persisters is critical to finding new tuberculosis drugs that shorten treatment. This review focuses on mycobacterial persisters and describes the challenges they pose in tuberculosis therapy, their characteristics and formation, how persistence leads to resistance, and the current approaches being used to target persisters within mycobacterial drug discovery.