Differential influence of nutrient-starved Mycobacterium tuberculosis on adaptive immunity results in progressive tuberculosis disease and pathology.

ABSTRACT: When infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, most individuals will remain clinically healthy but latently infected. Latent infection has been proposed to partially involve M. tuberculosis in a nonreplicating stage, which therefore represents an M. tuberculosis phenotype that the immune system most likely will encounter during latency. It is therefore relevant to examine how this particular nonreplicating form of M. tuberculosis interacts with the host immune system. To study this, we first induced a state of nonreplication through prolonged nutrient starvation of M. tuberculosis in vitro. This resulted in nonreplicating persistence even after prolonged culture in phosphate-buffered saline. Infection with either exponentially growing M. tuberculosis or nutrient-starved M. tuberculosis res

SUBMITTER: Dietrich J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4645392 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature