Studies of Mycobacterium leprae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Nocardia caviae in comparison with each other and with other Mycobacterium and Nocardia species were performed on the basis of antigen 21 intramolecular heterogeneity. Three different antisera were used: rabbit anti-Mycobacterium smegmatis antiserum, rabbit anti-Nocardia asteroides antiserum, and a lepromatous serum pool. With refe...

Although leprosy (Hansen’s disease) is one of the oldest known diseases, pathogenicity Mycobacterium leprae (M. leprae) remains enigmatic. Indeed, cell wall components responsible for immune response against M. are as yet largely unidentified. We reveal here phenolic glycolipid-III (PGL-III) an leprae-specific ligand receptor Mincle. PGL-III a scarcely present trisaccharide intermediate in bios...

In the peptidoglycan of Mycobacterium leprae, L-alanine of the side chain is replaced by glycine. When expressed in Escherichia coli, MurC (UDP-N-acetyl-muramate:L-alanine ligase) of M. leprae showed K(m) and V(max) for L-alanine and glycine similar to those of Mycobacterium tuberculosis MurC, suggesting that another explanation should be sought for the presence of glycine.

The control of leprosy will be facilitated by the identification of major Mycobacterium leprae-specific antigens which mirror the immune response to the organism across the leprosy spectrum. We have investigated the host response to a 35-kDa protein of M. leprae. Recombinant 35-kDa protein purified from Mycobacterium smegmatis resembled the native antigen in the formation of multimeric complexe...

The amino acid sequences of the 65-kilodalton antigens of Mycobacterium leprae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Mycobacterium bovis BCG display greater than 95% homology.

Citation: Singh I, Yadav AR, Mohanty KK, Katoch K, Sharma P, Pathak VK, Bisht D, Gupta UD and Sengupta U (2018) Autoimmunity to Tropomyosin-Specific Peptides Induced by Mycobacterium leprae in Leprosy Patients: Identification of Mimicking Proteins. Front. Immunol. 9:642. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.00642 autoimmunity to Tropomyosinspecific Peptides induced by Mycobacterium leprae in leprosy Patient...

We have investigated the effect of subunit vaccines against infection with Mycobacterium leprae, employing DNA plasmids as the vaccine vectors, and the immunodominant 35 kDa protein of M. leprae as the candidate antigen. A DNA vaccine that expresses the M. leprae 35 kDa protein both stimulated interferon-gamma (IFN gamma)-secreting T cells in mice, and demonstrated protection against M. leprae-...

Leprosy presents with a clinical spectrum of skin lesions that span from strong Th1-mediated cellular immunity and control of bacillary growth at one pole to poor Ag-specific T cell immunity with extensive bacillary load and Th2 cytokine-expressing lesions at the other. To understand how the immune response to Mycobacterium leprae is regulated, human dendritic cells (DC), potent inducers of ada...

we describe a rapid, simple, and reliable procedure for routine isolation of mycobacterium leprae dna from slit-skin swab specimens. this one-step dna extraction method is based on the utilization of chelexr 100, a chelating ion exchange resin. slit-skin swab specimens from seven untreated leprosy patients at baba baghi leprosy hospital in iran were processed by this procedure. the polymerase c...

The cross-immunity between tuberculosis and leprosy is unknown. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the occurrence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. leprae infection in Marshallese adult volunteers in Springdale, Arkansas, U.S.A., a population that experiences high rates of leprosy and tuberculosis. We used immunodiagnostic testing for tuberculosis and leprosy infection and found sig...