Lenaerts Anne J, Degroote Mary Ann, Orme Ian M
Mycobacteria Research Laboratories, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
Trends Microbiol. 2008 Feb;16(2):48-54. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2007.12.002. Epub 2008 Jan 7.
The continuing global epidemic of tuberculosis, the increasing rate of multidrug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis and the more recent emergence of extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis are great causes for concern. A major international effort is currently underway to optimize current drug therapies and to discover new drugs that are active against these organisms. This effort has created a pipeline of new candidate drugs at various stages of preclinical and early clinical evaluations. Major challenges still exist, however, varying from the standardization and application of current animal models and their application to drug discovery and characterization to the fact that our knowledge about the basic biology of the MDR and XDR strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is minimal at best.
结核病在全球持续流行，耐多药（MDR）结核病的发病率不断上升，以及最近广泛耐药（XDR）结核病的出现，都令人深感忧虑。目前正在开展一项重大的国际努力，以优化当前的药物治疗方法，并发现对这些病原体有效的新药。这项努力已经产生了一系列处于临床前和早期临床评估不同阶段的新候选药物。然而，重大挑战依然存在，从当前动物模型的标准化和应用及其在药物发现和特性鉴定中的应用，到我们对结核分枝杆菌耐多药和广泛耐药菌株基本生物学的了解充其量非常有限等问题不一而足。
