Despite decades of efforts and progress in the field, Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases. A major concern in the fight against TB, is the increasing worldwide spread of multidrug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-TB) strains, lowering treatment success rates drastically. Therefore, a main goal in TB research is the development of new anti-TB drugs. One of these new potential candidates, is the piperazine-containing benzothiazinone Macozinone (previously PBTZ-169). This bactericidal drug, which is currently in clinical Phase I/II studies, targets the essential flavoprotein DprE1.
In this project will investigate the effect of Macozinone on M. tuberculosis on a transcriptional level. Therefore, differential expression analyses will be performed for two pan-susceptible M. tuberculosis strains incubated with bactericidal concentrations of this drug.