Rapid Screening of Inhibitors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Growth Using Tetrazolium Salts

With the increased need for novel antimicrobials to improve the existing treatment for tuberculosis, to combat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and to address the presence of latent bacilli in a large population throughout the world, which can reactivate and cause active disease, there is a need for rapid, low-cost, high-throughput assays for screening new drug candidates. A microplate-based Alamar blue assay meets these requirements. In addition to the identification of the antimicrobial activities of compounds, determination of their toxicities is important. The high costs involved in testing compounds in whole animal models has led to the development of in vitro cytotoxicity assays using human and animal cell lines. Microplate-based Alamar blue and cytotoxicity assays have been applied to search for novel antimicrobials to treat tuberculosis. These methods are described in detail herein.