Abstract: Mycobacterium tuberculosis could go into nonreplicative dormancy.This stage of mycobacteria posed a significant problem for effective therapy as these persistent bacilli were resistant to most of the currently available drugs for the treatment of tuberculosis.The development of drugs that specifically target dormant bacilli could have a profound impact on tuberculosis therapy.In the present study,the extract of Fissistigma cavaleriei root showed a potential activity to resuscitate dormant tubercle bacillus into active bacilli based on Wayne model.It seemed that F.cavaleriei extract might stimulate dormant M.tuberculosis to use compounds of C₁₀ as energy sources for resuscitation.The combination of F.cavaleriei extract (2 mg/mL) and isoniazid (8 μg/mL) showed powerful killing effect on dormant M.tuberculosis. The findings of this study suggested that conventional anti-mycobacterials in combination with ‘dormancy-regrowth’ drugs might be considered as a novel strategy to eradicate latent M.tuberculosis.

Key words: Fissistigma cavaleriei, resuscitation, dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis