Exploiting Multicomponent Reactions to Drive the Development of Novel Antitubercular Agents: An Overview

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global epidemic, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), its etiological agent, continues to be the deadliest single infectious agent worldwide. Our inability to eradicate TB is strongly related to Mtb's ability to alternate between an active and latent disease state, and a lack of pharmacological agents that effectively target the heterogeneity of TB, which leads downstream to the emergence of drug resistance. The ongoing quest to discover novel effective chemical agents to improve anti‐TB regimens remains a significant challenge. Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) have been shown to generate highly diverse chemical libraries in a time‐ and cost‐efficient, sustainable manner, and thus have emerged as powerful tools to accelerate drug discovery and development. This review provides an overview of the chemical libraries of anti‐TB agents developed by MCRs, highlighting the contributions of MCRs to advance anti‐TB drug discovery through a medicinal chemistry approach.