Screening of Preselected Libraries Targeting Mycobacterium abscessus for Drug Discovery

Abstract

<i>Mycobacterium abscessus</i> is intrinsically resistant to many antimycobacterial antibiotics, which presents serious problems in therapy. Here, we describe the development of a novel phenotype-based microscopic and computerized imaging drug screening approach. A pilot screen of 568 compounds from two libraries identified 17 hits. Eleven of these compounds are described for the first time as active against <i>M. abscessus</i> The impact of growth media on the activity of these compounds was tested, revealing that cation-adjusted Mueller-Hinton broth (MHII) supports better growth of actively replicating <i>M. abscessus</i> and improves the activity of associated compounds.