Nanyang Technological University, School of Biological Sciences, 60 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637551, Republic of Singapore.
Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 2020 May;152:2-5. doi: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2020.02.003. Epub 2020 Feb 20.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), kills more people than any other bacterium. TB control is threatened by the continued spread of drug resistance; multi-drug and extensively drug resistant Mtb require longer, more costly, treatment with multiple drugs causing worse side effects and have a lower likelihood of treatment success. The urgent need for better treatment options for drug resistant Mtb has led the World Health Organization to prioritize development of not only new individual antitubercular agents, but also new drug regimens. This introductory chapter of the special issue Novel insights into TB research and drug discovery within Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, gives a short overview about the general problems of TB and the treatment of this disease today, and introduces the review topics within this issue.
结核分枝杆菌（Mtb）是结核病（TB）的病原体，它导致的死亡人数超过任何其他细菌。TB 控制受到耐药性持续传播的威胁；耐多药和广泛耐药的 Mtb 需要更长、更昂贵的、使用多种药物的治疗，导致更严重的副作用，治疗成功率更低。迫切需要更好的耐多药 Mtb 治疗选择，这促使世界卫生组织不仅优先开发新的抗结核药物，还开发新的药物方案。本期《生物物理学与分子生物学进展》特刊的开篇文章介绍了结核病研究和药物发现的新进展，简要概述了 TB 的一般问题和当今对这种疾病的治疗方法，并介绍了本期特刊中的综述主题。
