Access to online repositories for genomic and associated “-omics” datasets is now an essential part of everyday research activity. It is important therefore that the Tuberculosis community is aware of the databases and tools available to them online, as well as for the database hosts to know what the needs…
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is thought to preferentially rely on fatty acid metabolism to both establish and maintain chronic infections. Its metabolic network, however, allows efficient co-catabolism of multiple carbon substrates. To gain insight into the importance of carbohydrate substrates for Mtb pathogenesis we evaluated the role of glucose phosphorylation, the…
The sequencing of complete genomes has accelerated biomedical research by providing information about the overall coding capacity of bacterial chromosomes. The original TB annotation resulted in putative functional assignment of ∼60% of the genes to specific metabolic functions, however, the other 40% of the encoded ORFs where annotated as conserved…
Metabolism is a widely recognized facet of all host-pathogen interactions. Knowledge of its roles in pathogenesis, however, remains comparatively incomplete. Existing studies have emphasized metabolism as a cell autonomous property of pathogens used to fuel replication in a quantitative, rather than qualitatively specific, manner. For Mycobacterium tuberculosis, however, matters could…
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a major human pathogen and the causative agent for the pulmonary disease, tuberculosis (TB). Current treatment programs to combat TB are under threat due to the emergence of multi-drug and extensively-drug resistant TB. Through the use of high throughput whole cell screening of an extensive compound library…
The glyoxylate shunt plays an important role in fatty acid metabolism and has been shown to be critical to survival of several pathogens involved in chronic infections. For Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), a strain with a defective glyoxylate shunt was previously shown to be unable to establish infection in a mouse…
In drug development, there are typically a series of preclinical studies that must be completed with new compounds or regimens before use in humans. A sequence of in vitro assays followed by in vivo testing in validated animal models to assess the activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, pharmacology and toxicity is…
Reduction of active disease by preventive therapy has the potential to make an important contribution towards the goal of tuberculosis (TB) elimination. This report summarises discussions amongst a Working Group convened to consider areas of research that will be important in optimising the design and delivery of preventative therapies. The…
