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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : November 14, 2018 8:00 PM IST
TB infections by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis kills about 1.3 million people. ©Shutterstock
The researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Africa Health Research Institute, or AHRI, have identified a protein that plays an essential role in host defence against the deadly disease, tuberculosis. The research team have used freshly resected lung tissue from 21 patients and two distinct mouse models for the tuberculosis research.
According to the UAB News report, the research is led by a Ph.D., a UAB professor of microbiology, Andries Steyn who maintains labs at both UAB and the AHRI, in Durban, South Africa. Due to very high rates of tuberculosis, or TB, in South Africa and as patients undergo surgery as the last hope for recovery, infected human lung tissue is readily available from nearby hospitals.
The differences in immune responses and cell activity in these distinct regions can reveal the direct study of microanatomic niches in the fresh lung tissue, including healthy and severely diseased areas.
The research team led by Steyn reportedly said that this unique approach will aid in identifying potential host factors that could be therapeutically targeted to limit the extensive tissue damage associated with chronic pulmonary TB disease. As one to three TB bacteria in an aerosol droplet can cause infection, thus this dangerous lung tissue, including lungs infected with multi-drug-resistant or extensively drug-resistant TB bacteria, is carefully handled in an advanced biosafety lab at the AHRI.
As per as the study, every year the TB infections by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, or Mtb, kill about 1.3 million people.
The researchers were able to separate different types of cells found in distinct niches of human freshly resected TB lungs and characterize those cells for production of the protein heme oxygenase-1. Heme oxygenase-1, or HO-1, is an enzyme that protects cells from harmful reactive oxygen or nitrogen intermediates; HO-1 also is able to control inflammatory responses.
They found that HO-1 in human TB lungs was expressed primarily by myeloid immune cells, including neutrophils and macrophages, and that HO-1 levels in these cells were directly proportional to protection against TB pathophysiology.
Steyn reportedly said that this extensive analysis of freshly resected human TB lung tissue is the first of its kind, as these lungs are scarce.
