BACKGROUND M. africanum West African 2 constitutes an ancient lineage of the M. tuberculosis complex that commonly causes human tuberculosis in West Africa and has an attenuated phenotype relative to M. tuberculosis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In search of candidate genes underlying these differences, the genome of M. africanum West African 2 was sequenced using classical capillary sequen...

BACKGROUND  Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV)-infected persons are more susceptible to tuberculosis than HIV-uninfected persons. Low peripheral CD4+ T-cell count is not the sole cause of higher susceptibility, because HIV-infected persons with a high peripheral CD4+ T-cell count and those prescribed successful antiretroviral therapy (ART) remain more prone to active tuberculosis than HI...

Significant resistance against influenza virus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections was induced when trehalose dimycolate from M. tuberculosis or M. bovis but not M. avium was combined with muramyl dipeptide. Trehalose dimycolate from M. tuberculosis, in contrast to that from M. avium, could confer resistance against Toxoplasma gondii infections.

BACKGROUND Although it is established that opioid and Mycobacterium tuberculosis are both public health problems, the mechanisms by which they affect lung functions remain elusive. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We report here that mice subjected to chronic morphine administration and M. tuberculosis infection exhibited significant apoptosis in the lung in wild type mice as demonstrated by th...

WQ-3034 is a newly synthesized acidic fluoroquinolone. We assessed its in vitro activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. avium complex using levofloxacin (LVFX), ciprofloxacin (CPFX), sparfloxacin (SPFX), and KRM-1648 (KRM) as reference drugs. The MICs of these agents were determined by the agar dilution method with 7H11 medium. The MICs at which 50 and 90% of the test strains were in...

One-third of the world’s population is estimated to be infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) and remains asymptomatic. Of these, only 5-10% of the individuals are known to develop active tuberculosis in their lifetime. Host T cell mediated adaptive immune responses are of critical importance against M. tuberculosis infection. However the immune mechanisms that determine why...

During lung infection, Mycobacterium tuberculosis resides in macrophages and subverts the bactericidal mechanisms of these professional phagocytes. Comprehension of this host-pathogen relationship is fundamental for the development of new therapies to cure and prevent tuberculosis. In this work, we analyzed the transcriptional profile of M. tuberculosis infecting human macrophage-like THP-1 cel...

  The identification of a large number of antigens with potential for development of new tuberculosis vaccine has been accomplished in recent years. This study was designed for cloning and expression of ESAT-6 as a potent antigen of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Selected gene (Rv3875) was amplified by PCR and product was ligated into expressing plasmid vector pQE30 and recombinant pQE30-ES plasmi...

Objective(s): Detection of circulating Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) antigens is promising in Tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis. However, not a single antigen marker has been found to be widely expressed in all TB patients. This study is aimed to prepare broadly reactive polyclonal antibodies targeting multiple antigen markers (multi-target antibodies) and evaluate their efficacies in ...

Differences in host immune genes may predispose to tuberculosis caused by particular Mycobacterium tuberculosis genotypes. We examined this hypothesis in Indonesia by spoligotyping M. tuberculosis isolates recovered from 336 patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and typing the patients' SLC11A1 gene (formerly known as "NRAMP1"), which is involved in susceptibility to tuberculosis. The M. tubercu...