Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major cause of global mortality. Understanding the underlying immune response to the pathogen, , is essential for the development of vaccines. Evidence is accumulating supporting a contribution of innate immune cells and antibodies in control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), a leading cause of death by an infectious disease globally, has no efficacious vaccine. Antibodies are implicated in M. tuberculosis control, but the mechanisms of action remain poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhile control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection is generally understood to require Th1 cells and IFNγ, infection produces a spectrum of immunological and pathological phenotypes in diverse human populations. By characterizing Mtb infection in mouse strains that model the genetic heterogeneity of an outbred population, we identified strains that control Mtb comparably to a standard IFNγ-dependent mouse model but with substantially lower lung IFNγ levels. We report that these mice have a significantly altered CD4 T cell profile that specifically lacks the terminal effector Th1 subset and that this phenotype is detectable before infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFthe causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), is a leading cause of death by an infectious disease globally, with no efficacious vaccine. Antibodies are implicated in control, but the mechanisms of antibody action remain poorly understood. We assembled a library of TB monoclonal antibodies (mAb) and screened for the ability to restrict in mice, identifying protective antibodies targeting known and novel antigens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Microbiol
September 2024
Curr Opin Biotechnol
December 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that monoclonal antibodies can be deployed faster than antimicrobials and vaccines. However, the majority of mAbs treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, whereas a minority treat infection. This is in part because targeting a single antigen by the antibody Fab domain is insufficient to stop the dynamic microbial life cycle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSouth Africa has the highest prevalence of HIV and tuberculosis (TB) co-infection globally. Recurrent TB, caused by relapse or reinfection, makes up the majority of TB cases in South Africa, and HIV infected individuals have a greater likelihood of developing recurrent TB. Given that TB remains a leading cause of death for HIV infected individuals, and correlates of TB recurrence protection/risk have yet to be defined, here we sought to understand the antibody associated mechanisms of recurrent TB by investigating the humoral response in a longitudinal cohort of HIV co-infected individuals previously treated for TB with and without recurrent disease during follow-up, in order to identify antibody correlates of protection between individuals who do not have recurrent TB and individuals who do.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
October 2021
With an estimated 25% of the global population infected with (), tuberculosis (TB) remains a leading cause of death by infectious diseases. Humoral immunity following TB treatment is largely uncharacterized, and antibody profiling could provide insights into disease resolution. Here we focused on the distinctive TB-specific serum antibody features in active TB disease (ATB) and compared them with latent TB infection (LTBI) or treated ATB (txATB).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Infect Dis
November 2020
Background: Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains a global health problem and clinical management is complicated by difficulty in discriminating between latent infection and active disease. While M. tuberculosis-reactive antibody levels are heterogeneous, studies suggest that levels of IgG glycosylation differ between disease states.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the version of this article originally published, there was an error in the abstract. The word disease should not have been included in the sentence "These individuals were highly exposed to Mtb but tested negative disease by IFN-γ release assay and tuberculin skin test, 'resisting' development of classic LTBI". The sentence should have been "These individuals were highly exposed to Mtb but tested negative by IFN-γ release assay and tuberculin skin test, 'resisting' development of classic LTBI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposure to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) results in heterogeneous clinical outcomes including primary progressive tuberculosis and latent Mtb infection (LTBI). Mtb infection is identified using the tuberculin skin test and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) release assay IGRA, and a positive result may prompt chemoprophylaxis to prevent progression to tuberculosis. In the present study, we report on a cohort of Ugandan individuals who were household contacts of patients with TB.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Microbiol
December 2016
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) establishes a persistent infection, despite inducing antigen-specific T-cell responses. Although T cells arrive at the site of infection, they do not provide sterilizing immunity. The molecular basis of how Mtb impairs T-cell function is not clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell
October 2016
While a third of the world carries the burden of tuberculosis, disease control has been hindered by a lack of tools, including a rapid, point-of-care diagnostic and a protective vaccine. In many infectious diseases, antibodies (Abs) are powerful biomarkers and important immune mediators. However, in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, a discriminatory or protective role for humoral immunity remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Host Microbe
January 2016
Persistence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis results from bacterial strategies that manipulate host adaptive immune responses. Infected dendritic cells (DCs) transport M. tuberculosis to local lymph nodes but activate CD4 T cells poorly, suggesting bacterial manipulation of antigen presentation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMycobacterium tuberculosis commonly causes persistent or chronic infection, despite the development of Ag-specific CD4 T cell responses. We hypothesized that M. tuberculosis evades elimination by CD4 T cell responses by manipulating MHC class II Ag presentation and CD4 T cell activation and tested this hypothesis by comparing activation of Ag85B-specific CD4 T cell responses to M.
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