Tuberculosis and Gene Therapy : An Overview

Tuberculosis is the disease of tropical countries, which is caused by a bacillus called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis has not completely been eradicated even with the use of BCG Vaccine and synthetic drugs (when infection arises). Gene therapy may help for the treatment of tuberculosis by developing sequence specific antisense drugs as PS-ODNs (Phosphorothioate modified-oligodeoxyribonucleotides) in future. Antisense drugs are short stretches of deoxyribonucleotide analogs which bind to specific complementary areas of the mRNA (which have a sense sequence) by Watson-Crick base pairing to block gene expression in a sequence-specific fashion. In the present book; attempts were made to create a consensus approach for the development of an antisense for the treatment of M.tuberculosis in future.