Confinement-Induced Drug-Tolerance in Mycobacteria Mediated by an Efflux Mechanism.

ABSTRACT: Tuberculosis (TB) is the world's deadliest curable disease, responsible for an estimated 1.5 million deaths annually. A considerable challenge in controlling this disease is the prolonged multidrug chemotherapy (6 to 9 months) required to overcome drug-tolerant mycobacteria that persist in human tissues, although the same drugs can sterilize genetically identical mycobacteria growing in axenic culture within days. An essential component of TB infection involves intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria that multiply within macrophages and are significantly more tolerant to antibiotics compared to extracellular mycobacteria. To investigate this aspect of human TB, we created a physical cell culture system that mimics confinement of replicating mycobacteria, such as in a macrophage d

SUBMITTER: Luthuli BB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4546595 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature