Three patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease developed coexisting Mycobacterium malmoense and aspergillus infection. All suffered progressive lung destruction leading to early death despite prolonged antimycobacterial chemotherapy.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a truly global disease, found in every country on earth. One-third of humanity, over 2 billion people, carry the bacillus that causes TB and 2 million people die of the disease each year. Despite that, no new specific drug against Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been developed since the 1960s. There are several candidates for new anti-TB agents, but none proven clinically ef...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) exhibits remarkable metabolic flexibility that enables it to survive a plethora of host environments during its life cycle. With the advent of bedaquiline for treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, oxidative phosphorylation has been validated as an important target and a vulnerable component of mycobacterial metabolism. Exploiting the dependence of Mtb o...

Tuberculosis remains the most important communicable disease in the world. The World Health organization (WHO) estimates that one-third of the world’s population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Groups that are at high risk for tuberculosis infection include HIV-infected persons, immigrants from countries with high rates of tuberculosis, the homeless, health care professionals, intr...

A variety of medicines have been used for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. Antibacterial therapy has demonstrated promise by both improving symptoms and causing disease remission. The mechanism is unknown, but may be related to either eliminating a key pathogen, decreasing the number of bacterial secretory products or defective particles, a direct immunomodulating effect, or reducin...

Fifteen plant species were collected from the Nelspruit Botanical Garden based on a list of plants provided by Phytomedicine Programme at the University of Pretoria and their ethnopharmacological information. Hexane, dichloromethane (DCM), acetone and methanolic extracts were screened for antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium smegmatis. The acetone extract of Milletia stulhimannii wa...

Pulmonary disease caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) is a relatively rare occurrence in immunocompetent children. Two cases of endobronchial NTM infection in immunocompetent children are described. In addition, 41 other children with NTM pulmonary disease reported in the English literature between 1930 and 2003 are reviewed. Clinical manifestations are either purely respiratory or resp...

d-Cycloserine is a second-line drug approved for use in the treatment of patients infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiologic agent of tuberculosis. The unique mechanism of action of d-cycloserine, compared with those of other clinically employed antimycobacterial agents, represents an untapped and exploitable resource for future rational drug design programs. Here, we show that d-c...

The Ag85 family enzymes are responsible for the synthesis of cell wall components in mycobacterial species. Inhibitors to these enzymes are potential antimycobacterial agents. We have carried out the docking of phoshonate and trehalose analog inhibitors into the three dimensional structure of mycolyltransferase enzyme, Ag85C of M. tuberculosis using the GOLD software. The inhibitor binding posi...

Among all infectious diseases that afflict humans, tuberculosis (TB) remains the deadliest. At present, epidemiologists estimate that one-third of the world population is infected with tubercle bacilli, which is responsible for 8 to 10 million new cases of TB and 3 million deaths annually throughout the world. Approximately 95% of new cases and 98% of deaths occur in developing nations, general...