Mycobacterium tuberculosis loves fatty
Scientists from the Universities of Leicester and London, working under the guidance of Professor Mike Barer, have found that the accumulation of fat by Mycobacterium tuberculosis not only contributes to their transmission from one person to another, but also increases the resistance of the pathogen to anti-tuberculosis drugs.
Despite the efforts expended, success in the fight against tuberculosis is limited due to many reasons, one of which is the inability to control the transmission of infection from one person to another due to insufficient information about this phase of the mycobacterium life cycle. The authors' discovery casts doubt on the traditional notion that the bacteria contained in the sputum coughed up by patients multiply rapidly.
It turned out that, unlike mycobacteria grown in laboratory conditions, the pathogens contained in sputum are loaded with fat droplets (these droplets are clearly visible in a fluorescent microscope). Scientists claim that such "fatty" bacteria are at rest, ensuring their survival in the process of transfer from one person to another.
This discovery sheds light on the nature of particularly resistant mycobacteria – an untreatable population of microorganisms, due to which the duration of tuberculosis treatment is at least 6 months.
The authors analyzed the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, decoded by the Pathogen Sequencing Department, part of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Using microchips, they studied all the genes expressed by bacteria contained in the sputum coughing up from the lungs of tuberculosis patients. This allowed them to obtain important information about the characteristics of bacteria that are at the stage of transfer from one individual to another, and compare them with similar parameters of bacteria cultured in the laboratory.
As a result, the researchers not only established the relationship between fat accumulation and bacterial resistance, but also identified the gene expression profiles associated with this mechanism.
Professor Barer believes that this unexpected discovery opens up new opportunities for specialists to develop new effective approaches to preventing the spread and treatment of tuberculosis. He hopes that monitoring the content of dormant resistant bacteria in sputum will speed up the treatment of the disease.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru according to the materials
08.04.2008