International

2000/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

Tuberculosis is the disease that causes the most deaths in the world: it is spread to one in three people approximately. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the cause of the disease, but it is difficult to find it beforehand, as it can spend decades in the lungs without highlighting the disease. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Texas A&M University have identified one of the biochemical processes necessary for M. tuberculosis to survive in the mouse for a long time. They say the step is important because it can help create the vaccine.

The key is in the way of glioxilate and is a kind of trick. In this metabolic pathway bacteria that cannot produce a key enzyme grow normally, but are not able to remain in the state of origin and the mouse immune system destroys the lung bacteria. Enzyme producers, on the other hand, do not grow, but can remain at the origin for a long time.