Tuberculosis (TB) is a global health threat with nearly 500 000 new cases of multidrug-resistant TB estimated to occur every year, so new drugs are desperately needed. A number of current antimycobacterial drugs work by interfering with the biosynthesis of key components of the mycolylarabinogalactan (mAG). In light of this observation, other enzymes involved in the synthesis of the mAG should ...

The PhoPR two-component system is essential for virulence in Mycobacterium tuberculosis where it controls expression of approximately 2% of the genes, including those for the ESX-1 secretion apparatus, a major virulence determinant. Mutations in phoP lead to compromised production of pathogen-specific cell wall components and attenuation both ex vivo and in vivo. Using antibodies against the na...

Tests that detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens in clinical specimens could provide rapid direct evidence of active disease. We performed a systematic review to assess the diagnostic accuracy of antigen detection tests for active tuberculosis (TB) according to standard methods and summarized test performance using bivariate random effects meta-analysis. Overall, study quality was a concer...

Background Maintenance of long-lasting immunity is thought to depend on stem cell memory T cells (TSCM), which have superior self-renewing capacity, longevity and proliferative potential compared with central memory (TCM) or effector (TEFF) T cells. Our knowledge of TSCM derives primarily from studies of virus-specific CD8+ TSCM. We aimed to determine if infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosi...

BACKGROUND Although BCG vaccination is recommended in most countries of the world, little is known of the persistence of BCG-induced immune responses. As novel TB vaccines may be given to boost the immunity induced by neonatal BCG vaccination, evidence concerning the persistence of the BCG vaccine-induced response would help inform decisions about when such boosting would be most effective. M...

Two recent papers in PLoS Pathogens have investigated the activity of antigenspecific cells within the lung of mice infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) [1,2]. To the uninitiated this may seem to be redundant, as ‘‘we all know’’ that antigen-specific cells make interferon gamma (IFNc) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which activate infected phagocytes to kill the bacteria. However, wh...

Development of a TB vaccine for cattle is a research priority in Great Britain. Two challenges need to be addressed. Firstly, vaccine strategies enhancing the efficacy of M. bovis bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG), currently the only potentially available TB vaccine, and secondly the development of a diagnostic test to be used alongside vaccination to differentiate vaccinated and infected animals (...