Fighting Tuberculosis With Acid

Acidification is an important mechanism used by immune cells or macrophages to fight Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogens. It remains unclear, however, if acid kills the bacterium or if resistance to acidification is required for the development of the disease.

Online in Nature Medicine this week, Sabine Ehrt and colleagues found that Mycobacterium can actually survive the acidic environment inside macrophages due to a specific protein responsible for resistance. In the absence of this protein, Mycobacterium failed to survive, and its virulence was markedly reduced in mice.

On the basis of their findings, the authors propose that targeting the protein that creates resistance to acid is an attractive strategy against tuberculosis.

Author contact:

Sabine Ehrt (Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA)
E-mail: sae2004@med.cornell.edu

Abstract available online.

(C) Nature Medicine press release.

Message posted by: Trevor M. D'Souza