Synthetic Anti-TB Compounds

TB became again an important infectious disease worldwide in the mid- 1980´s, and several factors are responsible for this, such as AIDS epidemic, the advent of multidrug resistant strains (MDR), poor socioeconomic condition and immigration. Unfortunately, due to the disadvantages of the first and second line drugs, and the increase of MDR strains worldwide, nowadays we urgent need new drugs to improve the TB treatment or a tragedy can happen. Considering this problem, several actions have been made, and in 2000 it was established the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (GATB; www.tballiance.org). In this context, GATB have been working in partnership with different kinds of organizations, such as academic institutions, government research laboratories, non-governmental organizations, pharmaceutical industries and contract research houses. Due to its important work, GATB have changed the perspective of TB drug discovery. Considering that, this chapter aims to highlight synthetic compounds from different chemical classes, which were evaluated against M. tuberculosis in the last fifteen years.

Keywords: Tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, chemistry, synthetic compound, synthesis, drug development, treatment, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB), extensive-drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB), target, mechanism of action, biological evaluation.