In order to find more treatments for tuberculosis, researchers have successfully looked into its genetic origin.
- Tuberculosis is a common infectious disease caused by a mycobacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
- This infection causes the death of nearly 1.5 million people per year.
- To find new treatments, French researchers have identified a new genetic lesion predisposing to tuberculosis.
In their latest publication published in the scientific journal Nature, French researchers* have identified a new genetic lesion predisposing to tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis: two adult patients from the same family analyzed
To achieve this result, Dr. Andrés Arias, Dr. Anna-Lena Neehus, Dr. Laurent Abel, Dr. Jacinta Bustamante, Prof. José Franco Restrepo, Prof. Jean-Laurent Casanova and Dr. Stéphanie Boisson-Dupuis followed two adult patients from the same family from Colombia and suffering from recurrent pulmonary tuberculosis.
“The genetic analysis of these patients made it possible to identify a rare variant that completely inactivates the TNF gene, which is one of the central cytokines for protection against pulmonary infections,” noted the institute imagines in a press release. “The researchers were also able to identify the precise cells in which the TNF gene acts in the lungs,” can also be read in the document sent to the editorial staff. “The team’s work made it possible to focus the dysfunction of the TNF protein specifically in macrophages, the so-called “phagocytic” immune cells capable of internalizing and digesting the microbes present in the pulmonary alveoli”he adds.
“Understanding the biological mechanisms of immune defense against tuberculosis in greater detail makes it possible to improve the diagnosis and development of treatments, both curative and preventive, against this endemic disease. We can therefore hope, in the more or less short term, certain treatments to bring directly to the lungs the medicine necessary to protect people more sensitive to this bacteria”, he finishes.
Tuberculosis causes the death of nearly 1.5 million people per year
Tuberculosis is a common infectious disease caused by a mycobacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Around 10 million people develop tuberculosis each year worldwide, in all countries and in all age groups.
Although the disease is treatable, care remains cumbersome and bacterial strains are increasingly resistant to current antibiotics. The BCG vaccine, administered to infants as a preventative measure, is protective against meningeal tuberculosis in very young children but very little or not at all against the contaminating form (that is to say against pulmonary tuberculosis in adults). “This infection causes the death of nearly 1.5 million people per year. It is a major global public health problem,” underlines the Imagine Institute in conclusion.
*The Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases laboratory of the Imagine Institute (Inserm, AP-HP, Paris Cité University) and the Rockefeller University as well as the Innate Errors of Immunity laboratory of the University of Antioquia ( Colombia, South America).
