Time to put TB on a diet

TB kills over 1.5 million people a year. Although the mortality rate has dropped by 47% since 1990 due to advances in preventive and treatment options, the tuberculosis bacillus is growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics. For this reason, biochemists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, are attempting to identify the mechanisms that enable the bacterium to reproduce, spread and survive in latent form in our macrophages. The scientists have discovered that the bacterium has the ability to "reprogramm" the cell it infects so that it can feed on its lipids. The UNIGE research results, which will be published in the PLOS Pathogens journal, will pave the way for new treatment opportunities based on starving and weakening the bacterium.