Genetics Tuberculosis

Until about 10 years ago, the general view in the field was that Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis was a “clone” with insufficient natural sequence variation between clinical strains to be considered biologically and epidemiologically “relevant”.

This volume explores such topics as mechanisms associated with increasing trends of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), the development of anti-mycobacterial drugs, genotyping tools, diagnosis and treatment of latent tuberculosis infection, and more.

This volume is dedicated to an ancient disease with a high incidence and mortality rate, unequally distributed worldwide. Epidemiological studies in different geographical areas will help in this field.

This book discusses specific immune cell regulatory pathway(s), immune cell types, or other mechanisms involved in host responses to tuberculosis that can be potentially targeted for host-directed therapy (HDT). The pathways/mechanisms investigated are either protective – thus calling for pathway/factor enhancing drugs – or maladaptive – thus calling for pathway/factor inhibitory drugs.

This book discusses specific immune cell regulatory pathway(s), immune cell types, or other mechanisms involved in host responses to tuberculosis that can be potentially targeted for host-directed therapy (HDT). The pathways/mechanisms investigated are either protective – thus calling for pathway/factor enhancing drugs – or maladaptive – thus calling for pathway/factor inhibitory drugs. Discovery and development (pre-clinical and clinical) of candidate HDT agents will also be elucidated, as well as approaches for HDT of other diseases.