Mycobacterium tuberculosis PE25/PPE41 protein complex induces necrosis in macrophages: Role in virulence and disease reactivation?

Human mesenchymal stem cells: New sojourn of bacterial pathogens

Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), is the leading infectious disease which claims one human life every 15-20s globally. The persistence of this deadly disease in human population can be attributed to the ability of the bacterium to stay in latent form. M. tuberculosis possesses a plethora of mechanisms not only to survive latently under harsh conditions inside the host but also modulate the host immune cells in its favour. Various M. tuberculosis gene families have also been described to play a role in this process. Recently, human bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been reported as a niche for dormant M. tuberculosis. MSCs possess abilities to alter the host immune response. The bacterium finds this self-renewal and immune privileged nature of MSCs very favourable not only to modulate the host immune system, with some help from its own genes, but also to avoid the external drug pressure. We suggest that the MSCs not only provide a resting place for M. tuberculosis but could also, by virtue of their intrinsic ability to disseminate in the body, explain the genesis of extra-pulmonary TB. A similar exploitation of stem cells by other bacterial pathogens is a distinct possibility. It may be likely that other intracellular bacterial pathogens adopt this strategy to 'piggy-back' on to ovarian stem cells to ensure vertical transmission and successful propagation to the next generation.

Comparative analyses of nonpathogenic, opportunistic, and totally pathogenic mycobacteria reveal genomic and biochemical variabilities and highlight the survival attributes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterial evolution involves various processes, such as genome reduction, gene cooption, and critical gene acquisition. Our comparative genome size analysis of 44 mycobacterial genomes revealed that the nonpathogenic (NP) genomes were bigger than those of opportunistic (OP) or totally pathogenic (TP) mycobacteria, with the TP genomes being smaller yet variable in size—their genomic plasticity reflected their ability to evolve and survive under various environmental conditions. From the 44 mycobacterial species, 13 species, representing TP, OP, and NP, were selected for genomic-relatedness analyses. Analysis of homologous protein-coding genes shared between Mycobacterium indicus pranii (NP), Mycobacterium intracellulare ATCC 13950 (OP), and Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (TP) revealed that 4,995 (i.e., ~95%) M. indicaus pranii proteins have homology with M. intracellulare, whereas the homologies among M. indicus pranii, M. intracellulare ATCC 13950, and M. tuberculosis H37Rv were significantly lower. A total of 4,153 (~79%) M. indicus pranii proteins and 4,093 (~79%) M. intracellulare ATCC 13950 proteins exhibited homology with the M. tuberculosis H37Rv proteome, while 3,301 (~82%) and 3,295 (~82%) M. tuberculosis H37Rv proteins showed homology with M. indicus pranii and M. intracellulare ATCC 13950 proteomes, respectively. Comparative metabolic pathway analyses of TP/OP/NP mycobacteria showed enzymatic plasticity between M. indicus pranii (NP) and M. intracellulare ATCC 13950 (OP), Mycobacterium avium 104 (OP), and M. tuberculosis H37Rv (TP). Mycobacterium tuberculosis seems to have acquired novel alternate pathways with possible roles in metabolism, host-pathogen interactions, virulence, and intracellular survival, and by implication some of these could be potential drug targets.

The complete sequence analysis of Mycobacterium indicus pranii, a novel species of Mycobacterium shown earlier to have strong immunomodulatory properties and currently in use for the treatment of leprosy, places it evolutionarily at the point of transition to pathogenicity. With the purpose of establishing the importance of M. indicus pranii in providing insight into the virulence mechanism of tuberculous and nontuberculous mycobacteria, we carried out comparative genomic and proteomic analyses of 44 mycobacterial species representing nonpathogenic (NP), opportunistic (OP), and totally pathogenic (TP) mycobacteria. Our results clearly placed M. indicus pranii as an ancestor of the M. avium complex. Analyses of comparative metabolic pathways between M. indicus pranii (NP), M. tuberculosis (TP), and M. intracellulare (OP) pointed to the presence of novel alternative pathways in M. tuberculosis with implications for pathogenesis and survival in the human host and identification of new drug targets.