Recently, the research team of Zhang Tianyu from the tuberculosis research group of the SKLRD and Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health of Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered that a bi-functional enzyme for encoding of Rv2783c might be the new target of PZA. Their related research finding “Pyrazinoic Acid Inhibits a Bifunctional Enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis” was published on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (DOI: 10.1128/AAC.00070-17) hosted by American Society for Microbiology. The first author of the paper is Dr. Moses Njire, an international student of Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health and the second author is Dr. Wang Na.

The research helps reveal the formation mechanism of persisting bacteria (particularly persisting Mtb) and offers a theoretical basis for the research and development of new anti-TB drugs and therapies. Meanwhile, it may provide new molecular marker for the diagnosis of sensitiveness of PZA and a helpful inspiration for the development of better PZA sensitiveness detection technology.