2 September 2004
Hypervirulent tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is curable in most cases thanks to multidrug therapy, but a significant fraction of patients fail to respond. Different patient outcomes are generally thought to be due to the variable human response to infection with a genetically stable pathogen. However, a new study shows that the pathogen is subject to variability as well. A subset of Mycobacterium tuberculosis W-Beijing isolates known to be hypervirulent in mice is shown to produce a specific molecule, phenolic glycolipid (PGL), that inhibits the innate immune response in in vitro tests. So far the link between PGL and hypervirulence is restricted to this model system, but this raises the possibility that variable expression of bacterial factors may influence the progression of the disease in humans too, and that strain-specific methods of treatment might be the way forward.
A glycolipid of hypervirulent tuberculosis strains
that inhibits the innate immune response
MICHAEL B. REED, PILAR DOMENECH, CLAUDIA MANCA, HUA
SU, AMY K. BARCZAK, BARRY N. KREISWIRTH, GILLA KAPLAN & CLIFTON E.
BARRY III
Nature 431, 84–87 (2004); doi:10.1038/nature02837
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