Heterologous Expression of ethA and katG in Mycobacterium marinum Enables the Rapid Identification of New Prodrugs Active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Abstract

Screening strategies for antituberculosis compounds using Mycobacterium tuberculosis are time consuming and require biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facilities, which makes the development of high-throughput assays difficult and expensive. Mycobacterium marinum , a close genetic relative of M. tuberculosis , possesses several advantages as a suitable model for tuberculosis drug screening. However, despite the high genetic similarity, there are some obvious differences in susceptibility to some tuberculosis drugs between these two species, especially for the prodrugs ethionamide and isoniazid.