Researchers' discovery could help beat tuberculosis

• Published date: 14 October 2021
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times: Web Edition Articles (New Zealand)

Biochemist Prof Kurt Krause and microbiologist Prof Greg Cook are part of an international collaboration with Nobel Prize winner Prof Hartmut Michel, of Germany's Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, that has determined the atomic structure of a protein called bd oxidase.

Prof Krause said the discovery would serve as an important template for drug discovery and for producing fast-acting drugs — ideally a four-week course — to replace the present side-effect heavy, six-month treatment protocol.

"Tb is the world's leading cause of death from infectious diseases and a rapid cure could lead to world-wide elimination of Tb.

"This would have an enormous global health impact.

"The holy grail in infectious diseases would be a rapid cure for Tb and the determination of the bd oxidase structure from the bacterium that causes Tb is a key first step in exactly that direction."

The bd oxidase protein lived in the cell membrane of the Tb bacterium and helped it breathe under very low oxygen conditions that often occurred in infected lungs during a Tb infection.

"Knowing the structure of this protein will speed up the process of designing and discovering small molecules that can block bd oxidase function and help to rapidly kill Tb germs," Prof Krause said.

"Our detailed insights into the long-sought atomic framework of the cytochrome bd oxidase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis will form the basis for the design of highly specific drugs to act on this enzyme."

Tb is one of the hardest infections to treat.

It is very hardy, resilient, hard to kill and hard to study in the lab because it grows very...