Loading...
Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are increasingly requiring creativity to achieve successful treatments. One approach is reexamining drugs that are already available for other uses. Mycobacterium abscessus is a rapid-growing nontuberculous mycobacterium that is intrinsically resistant to most drug classes and causes respiratory infections in chronic lung disease patients. The rifamycins rifampin and rifapentine do not exhibit activity against M. abscessus, but the related drug rifabutin showed inhibition of M. abscessus. This finding led investigators to examine rifabutin in a murine model of M. abscessus infection.
In genetically engineered 8-week-old mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (impaired B and T lymphocytes and insufficient na…