1. Early phase of effective treatment induces distinct transcriptional changes in Mycobacterium tuberculosis expelled by pulmonary tuberculosis patients.
- Author
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Shaikh A, Sriraman K, Vaswani S, Oswal V, Rao S, and Mistry N
- Subjects
- Adult, Antitubercular Agents therapeutic use, Ethambutol administration & dosage, Ethambutol therapeutic use, Female, Humans, Isoniazid administration & dosage, Isoniazid therapeutic use, Male, Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug effects, Pyrazinamide administration & dosage, Pyrazinamide therapeutic use, Rifampin administration & dosage, Rifampin therapeutic use, Transcriptome drug effects, Treatment Outcome, Tuberculosis, Pulmonary microbiology, Young Adult, Antitubercular Agents administration & dosage, Mycobacterium tuberculosis genetics, Tuberculosis, Pulmonary drug therapy
- Abstract
Effective treatment reduces a tuberculosis patient's ability to infect others even before they test negative in sputum or culture. Currently, the basis of reduced infectiousness of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) with effective treatment is unclear. We evaluated changes in aerosolized bacteria expelled by patients through a transcriptomic approach before and after treatment initiation (up to 14 days) by RNA sequencing. A distinct change in the overall transcriptional profile was seen post-treatment initiation compared to pretreatment, only when patients received effective treatment. This also led to the downregulation of genes associated with cellular activities, cell wall assembly, virulence factors indicating loss of pathogenicity, and a diminished ability to infect and survive in new host cells. Based on this, we identified genes whose expression levels changed with effective treatment. The observations of the study open up avenues for further evaluating the changes in bacterial gene expression during the early phase of treatment as biomarkers for monitoring response to tuberculosis treatment regimens and provide means of identifying better correlates of Mtb transmission., (© 2021. The Author(s).)
- Published
- 2021
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