A more effective way to find the chink in TB’s armour

Scientists have devised a more effective way to fight tuberculosis by identifying proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacterium that causes the disease. Pharma companies can now concentrate on making drugs that will destroy these proteins and thus, kill Mtb. The breakthrough was made by Dr Ramandeep Singh, an assistant professor at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Research Centre, and his team at Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Gurgaon. They have identified certain proteins that have a role in Mtb stress adaptation, drug tolerance and virulence. “A set of genes under the control of a single gene is an operon. The second gene of an operon produces a toxin that inhibits DNA, RNA or protein synthesis in the bacterium. Under normal conditions, this system is not activated. The second gene produces an antitoxin. This is called the Toxin Antitoxin (TA) system,” Dr Singh told Express. MbT has eight TA modules and a...