Advancing host-directed therapy for tuberculosis: new therapeutic insights from the Toxoplasma gondii

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) drug-development strategies, a wide range of candidate host-directed therapies (HDT) sincluding new and repurposed drugs, biologics, and cellular therapies-have been proposed to accelerate eradication of infection and overcome the problems associated with current treatment regimens. By investigating the interaction between macrophages and the intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii), we uncovered that infection-induced signaling pathways suggest possibilities for the development of novel therapeutic modalities for TB that target the intracellular signaling pathways permitting the replication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB).