Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection of the lung. Tuberculosis caused by M. tube

Question

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection of the lung. Tuberculosis caused by M. tuberculosis (MTB) is a highly infectious respiratory infection. MTB infects pulmonary macrophages. Like mice lacking TNF-alpha (TNF^-/- mice). MyD88^-/- mice succumbed within 4 weeks to acute, necrotic pulmonary MTB infection with uncontrolled bacterial growth (graphs A-D, below). Reference: http://www.ncbl.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artlcles/PMC535064/Provide an explanation for why MyD88 might be required for survival of mice infected with virulent MTB. What would you measure to determine if MyD88^-/- mice retained the ability to mount an adaptive immune response against MTB? (even though the adaptive immunity was not protective).

Explanation / Answer

Since the mice used for the test lacks the gene TNF-alpha which is a cell signalling protein involved in the systematic infalmation and it ia cytokines that makes up for acute phase reaction, which is produced by macrophages.But instead MyD88 is a gene which encodes for a protein which gives the Myeloid differentiation primary response.Since the bacteria mainly affects the macrophages,damaging the TNF alpha particles, thus MyD88 might be required for the survivalence for the mice. We can measure the bacterial growth and physical appearence of the mice to determine whether MyD88--/--mice retained the ability to mount an adaptive immune response against MTB. From the graphs given above we can also observe that the growth of bacteria has been slowly decreasing after infection due to the action MyD88. We can also do the microscopic observations of lung cells. We can also do the signalling pathway for the MyD88 gene.

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