Tuberculosis infections kill one individual every 21 seconds worldwide, most often in developing countries. A research collaboration between the University of Queensland in Australia and the University of California San Francisco investigated the use of cholesterol as a way to control TB's virulence.
Cholesterol is known to slow the activity of tuberculosis, and the new research suggests a modified version of the compound could stop the bacteria responsible for the deadly infections from growing altogether.
"The results presented here thus implicate a distinct and more robust mechanism of growth inhibition," study authors concluded. "They define a new paradigm for the development of agents that can, at least in culture, block the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Further exploration of this paradigm is a promising route for the development of therapeutically useful inhibitors."
The findings are published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.