New Frontiers in the Therapy of Tuberculosis: Fighting with the Global Menace

Tuberculosis has remained an enemy of humankind since its inception. It has affected all facets of human life and remained leading cause of mortality and morbidity despite of availability of effective chemotherapy and BCG vaccine in 21st century. This has exposed the frailties of the current drug armamentarium. No new drug is available acting through novel mechanism of action for last 40 years. This has culminated into resistant strain of TB, MDR-TB and XDR-TB. Concomitant occurrence of TB and HIV presents a lethal combination. The availability of the M. tuberculosis genome sequence and mycobacterial genetic tools, such as transposon mutagenesis, gene knockout and gene transfer, greatly facilitate target identification. This review provides a comprehensive literature compilation on the present research paradigm of anti-TB drug discovery including advances in the new structural classes analogs reported in last decade.