Mycobacterial lipid bodies and the chemosensitivity and transmission of tuberculosis

摘要: Just over a quarter of humanity is infected with the tubercle bacillus and risks developing active disease that routinely requires 6-month treatment. The impact of this scourge cannot be underestimated, and reducing the global burden of tuberculosis is the focus of much research. In addition to the need for improved chemotherapy regimens and monitoring thereof, understanding the risk and processes involved in transmission, a critical step in the life cycle of the organism, has even greater potential to impact the burden of disease. Our chance observation that lipid bodies (LBs) were present in Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum, but not in growing cultures of the lab strain in vitro, led us and others to examine this phenomenon further. Transcriptional analysis of the bacilli in sputum identified that upregulation of tgs1, a triacylglycerol synthase, was likely responsible for the presence of these LBs. Strikingly …