Tuberculosis (TB) still remains a major health problem. Even in drug susceptible cases, the current chemotherapy may last up to nine months. This is thought to be the consequence of the arousal of a subpopulation of bacilli that replicates very slowly and thus might not be susceptible to drug treatment. So it is clear that new drugs are needed to shorten the present chemotherapy scheme, and Islam et al. propose that this might be achieved by studying tuberculosis as a biofilm forming disease. A biofilm is defined as a community of microorganisms that grow attached to a matrix composed of secreted polymers (such as lipids, polysaccharides, proteins or nucleic acids). Biofilm-forming pathogens cause recalcitrant infections that exhibit a drug tolerant phenotype, which are characteristics possessed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) as well.
Last date updated on July, 2014
