Whole-Genome Sequencing in Relation to Resistance of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

Phylogenetic Tracing of Evolutionarily Conserved Zonula Occludens Toxin Reveals a "High Value" Vaccine Candidate Specific for Treating Multi-Strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections

Extensively drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections are emerging as a significant threat associated with adverse patient outcomes. Due to this organism's inherent properties of developing antibiotic resistance, we sought to investigate alternative strategies such as identifying "high value" antigens for immunotherapy-based purposes. Through extensive database mining, we discovered that numerous Gram-negative bacterial (GNB) genomes, many of which are known multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, including P. aeruginosa, horizontally acquired the evolutionarily conserved gene encoding Zonula occludens toxin (Zot) with a substantial degree of homology. The toxin's genomic footprint among so many different GNB stresses its evolutionary importance. By employing in silico techniques such as proteomic-based phylogenetic tracing, in conjunction with comparative structural modeling, we discovered a highly conserved intermembrane associated stretch of 70 amino acids shared among all the GNB strains analyzed. The characterization of our newly identified antigen reveals it to be a "high value" vaccine candidate specific for P. aeruginosa. This newly identified antigen harbors multiple non-overlapping B- and T-cell epitopes exhibiting very high binding affinities and can adopt identical tertiary structures among the least genetically homologous P. aeruginosa strains. Taken together, using proteomic-driven reverse vaccinology techniques, we identified multiple "high value" vaccine candidates capable of eliciting a polarized immune response against all the P. aeruginosa genetic variants tested.

Serum Inflammation Markers in Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis remains one of the leading infectious cause of death in the world. The goals of screening are to detect active tuberculosis early enough and to identify individuals eligible for preventive therapy to reduce a po tential co-infection by tuberculosis. Plasma/serum screening for selected potential biomarkers could represent a suitable method of tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment outcome. Furthermore, monitoring of tuberculosis treatment is crucial to clinical decision-making and besides the plasmatic concentration of administered antituberculosis drugs, the biomarkers appear to play a significant role in the estimation of the real therapeutical impact.

The current standard remains focused on culture conversion, especially two-month culture status, which has a relatively low sensitivity. Identification of non-sputum-based biomarkers of the treatment respond would be beneficial for individual monitoring of tuberculosis patients.

This mini-review describes several serological/plasmatic markers that can be analyzed by simple immunoassays as ELISA method, e.g. C-reactive protein, soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1, soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor, soluble lymphocyte activation gene-3, granzyme B and soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor one and two as reliable enough as an indicator of successful treatment of tuberculosis.

Benefits of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring of First Line Antituberculosis Drugs

Tuberculosis is an airborne infectious disease that remains a huge global health-related issue nowadays. Despite constant approvals of newly developed drugs, the use of first-line antituberculosis medicines seems reasonable in drug-susceptible Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains. Therapeutic drug monitoring presents a useful technique for the determination of plasma drug concentration to adjust appropriate dose regimes. In tuberculosis treatment, therapeutic drug monitoring is aiding clinicians in selecting an optimal therapeutic level, which is essential for the personalisation of therapy. This review is aimed at clarifying the use of therapeutic drug monitoring of the first-line antituberculosis drugs in routine clinical practice.