Revisiting the potential of elongation factors as drug targets for pathogenic mycobacteria.

Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria infections are a threat to global healthcare. The scarcity of therapeutic options highlights the urgent necessity to discover efficacious drug targets and inhibitors. Protein synthesis has been clinically proven to be an excellent target for antibiotic development. Translation involves three well-defined steps: initiation, elongation and termination. The crucial elongation stage utilizes elongation factors (EFs: EF thermo unstable, EF thermo stable and EF G) that facilitate the sequential addition of amino acids. This review provides a perspective on the potential of mycobacterial EFs as innovative targets because of their vital role in translation, trans-translation and other alternative functions.