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Tuberculosis can be treated with natural medicines
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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In many countries of the world, the problem of high tuberculosis incidence is very acute. In Ukraine, every fourth resident falls ill with this disease, and one person from this number dies.
A team of Swiss scientists has discovered that the secretion products of a soil bacterium are a potential natural cure for tuberculosis.
A natural substance secreted by soil bacteria offers hope for the possibility of developing a new, more effective drug to combat tuberculosis. The scientists presented their results in a report in EMBO Molecular Medicine.
Experts have shown how pyridomycin, a natural antibiotic produced by the bacteria Dactylosporangium fulvum, works. This antibiotic is quite active against many drug-resistant types of tuberculosis bacteria that no longer respond to treatment with the main drug isoniazid.
"Thanks to evolution, some bacteria have powerful defence mechanisms. Therefore, studying the products of their vital activity is a certain way to find new drugs to fight infections," said the lead author of the study, Professor Stuart Cole. "Thanks to this approach, we have shown that pyridomycin is a natural antibiotic that wages a selective war on mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is very active against mycobacteria, which do not allow first-line drugs, such as isoniazid, to reach the virus."
Tuberculosis kills two million people every year, so there is an urgent need for scientists to develop a drug that will stop the disease or slow its progress.
Rifampicin and isoniazid are the most well-known drugs used to treat tuberculosis. However, these drugs are unfortunately often ineffective today.
Experts have isolated a mycobacterial protein, InhA, which is the main target for antibiotics. It turns out that pyridomycin binds to this protein in such a way that it defeats drug-resistant strains of mycobacteria.
Pyridomycin kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis by inhibiting the activity of InhA enzymes.