Characterization of mycobacterial enzymes as targets for potential antitubercular compounds.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an aerobic pathogen that establishes its infection mainly in lungs. Even if it was considered for a very long period an illness of the past, new hotspots arose at the beginning of ’90 and it is still today a global emergency. According to the 2019 WHO global report, tuberculosis is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide.10 million new cases were estimated only in 2019 and 1.5 million people died for the disease in the same year, overall cause of the multi-drug resistant and extensively drug resistant strains. To fight back this emergency it is necessary to identify new therapeutic TB drug targets and to develop more effective drugs. In this thesis I show how it is possible to design multi-target molecules that may inhibits the M. tuberculosis salicylate synthase MbtI and the virulence factor protein phosphatase PtpB, two interesting mycobacterial druggable targets.