Testing a Traditional Remedy Against TB
Long before modern antibiotics, a South African plant was being used to treat tuberculosis. Today, laboratory tools let us test what it might actually do.
Why TB Research Matters Here
Tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and South Africa carries one of the heaviest TB burdens in the world. Treatment takes months, drug-resistant strains are a growing problem, and better diagnostics and new medicines are urgently needed.
How Proteomics Helps TB Research
Finding biomarkers: comparing the blood proteins of people with and without active TB can point to markers for faster, more accurate diagnosis.
Understanding the immune response: proteomics shows how the body responds to infection, and why some people control it while others become ill.
Studying drug resistance: resistant strains often produce different proteins, which can reveal how they survive treatment.
Finding new drug targets: proteins the bacterium needs to survive, but that humans don’t have, make attractive targets for new medicines.
Umckaloabo Under the Microscope
Pelargonium sidoides, known as umckaloabo, is a South African medicinal plant. An extract of its root is sold today for respiratory infections, and it has a long history of use against TB.
In Novel kinase platform for the validation of the anti-tubercular activities of Pelargonium sidoides (2020), a team led by Vishani Lukman and Colin Kenyon built a testing platform from eight enzymes that the TB bacterium uses in its metabolism. They produced each enzyme in the lab, then measured how strongly the plant extract blocked it.
The extract inhibited all of them to some degree, and most strongly shikimate kinase and glycerol kinase. Shikimate kinase is especially interesting because it belongs to a pathway that humans don’t have, so a drug that blocks it should, in principle, leave our own cells alone.
My Part in the Study
Together with N. Tshililo and L. Mbabala, I designed and carried out the proteomics and mass spectrometry experiments for the study. Part of that work was making sure each purified enzyme was exactly what it was supposed to be, because an enzyme test is only as trustworthy as the enzyme in it.
What This Means, and What It Doesn’t
This is a laboratory study of enzymes, not a clinical trial. It suggests P. sidoides contains compounds worth investigating, and it gives researchers a platform to screen other plant extracts and pinpoint which compounds act on which targets. It does not show that the plant can treat TB in people. TB is curable with the right medicines, and anyone being treated for TB should complete their full course as prescribed.