Comparative study of activities of a diverse set of antimycobacterial agents against mycobacterium tuberculosis and mycobacterium ulcerans

Abstract

A library of compounds covering a broad chemical space was selected from a tuberculosis drug development program and was screened in a whole-cell assay against Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of the necrotizing skin disease Buruli ulcer. While a number of potent antitubercular agents were only weakly active or inactive against M. ulcerans, five compounds showed high activity (90% inhibitory concentration [IC90], ≤ 1 μM), making screening of focused antitubercular libraries a good starting point for lead generation against M. ulcerans.