A new study pinpointing a mechanism involved in apoptosis in tuberculosis (TB) sheds new light on the disease and could lead to a new use for a cancer chemotherapy drug in fighting TB. The research was done by Texas Biomedical Research Institute scientists and published this week in PLOS Pathogens.
For the study, macrophages were infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) to test if apoptotic pathways regulated by PPAR-gamma are a good target to halt the disease. When infected macrophages were treated by PPAR-gamma inhibitors, M.tb growth was reduced by 80%.
Another hallmark of tuberculosis infection is its creation of granulomas in the lungs, which are created by the body to eliminate detection, but can also provide a niche for the bacterium to hide from antibiotics. The study revealed that the experimental cancer drugs also reduced M.tb growth in granulomas using a human granuloma model.
Since the cancer drugs similar to those used in the study are already in Phase II of FDA clinical trials, which could speed up the time it takes to get approval for their use to treat tuberculosis. The next steps for the researchers will be to test the drugs in mouse models, then in nonhuman primates before moving to human trials.