[University of Guelph] Researchers Identify Potential Drug Target in TB Stress-Response System

9 June 2026

University of Guelph news release

TB is one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, killing more than a million people every year. Part of what makes the bacterium that causes the disease so difficult to eliminate is its ability to survive the harsh conditions of the human body, including living inside immune cells that are meant to destroy invading microbes.

With widespread resistance to current antibiotics that target processes like DNA replication or protein synthesis, researchers are looking to the bacterium’s stress-response machinery as a potential avenue for new treatments.

New University of Guelph research, published in Nature Communications, sheds light on the workings of the proteasome, the bacterial equivalent of a recycling centre, where damaged proteins are broken down after being selected for destruction.

Because the TB bacterium is constantly under attack from the immune system, the proteasome is essential to keep these proteins from piling up, interfering with critical cellular processes, and making it harder for the TB bacterium to survive stress.

The “sorting gate” of this recycling centre is a protein complex called Bacterial proteasome activator (Bpa). Exactly how Bpa decides which proteins to grab has not been well understood, in part because Bpa’s natural targets are unstable and difficult for researchers to work with. Yet the central role of Bpa in clearing damaged proteins and helping the bacterium withstand stress has made it an attractive potential drug target against TB.

Read the full news release here.

 

Source: University of Guelph