Scientists Have Filmed the Death of a Tuberculosis-Infected Cell for the First Time
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis or TB, has existed for as long as humans. To combat the disease-causing microbe, experts say that there is a need to know how it attacks the immune system of the body.
Now, NTNU researchers have taken a step toward the objective by having the process filmed. With this, some TB patients never actually recover from the illness. Every fourth person harbors TB bacteria in his body, even though only about five to ten percent of the infected populace gets ill.
Those who get sick are advised to take antibiotics for an extended period of up to two years. However, due to resistance to certain antibiotics, some patients don't ever recover. Meanwhile, patients who have had the illness and survive don't become 100% protected from it.
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Detailed Death Process Filmed
One of the experts in TB and the bacterium that causes it is NTNU's Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research or CEMIR's Professor Trude Helen Flo.
Together with nanotechnologists Kai and Marianne Sandvold Beckwith, Flo was able to film the detailed death process unfolding inside a cell. This is unusual and was published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
Flo said that her team examined the TB bacteria, as well as other proteins, with fluorescent colors such as blue, red, and green in the cell.
They used advanced fluorescent microscopy to film the bacterium before they studied them with a 3D electron microscope with a nanometric resolution. Flo and her team were able to film the process for over 24 hours.
Time-Lapse Sequences Filmed
Based on the report, the most hazardous bacteria are said to be the best at fooling the immune system of the body. The TB bacterium hides in the central cells that that are supposed to destroy it.
Essentially, Flo said that the TB bacterium stays in the macrophages functioning as the immune system's caretakers, removers of wastes, and guards.
Additionally, the primary function of macrophages in the immune system is to consume and break microbes as it warns the immune system as a whole.
Tuberculosis bacteria have discovered ways to hide inside the macrophage and escape the chance of being destroyed or killed.
Furthermore, according to Flo, the TB bacterium stays in the world's best hiding place. The group of researchers was able to film the bacterium in multiple time-lapse sequences for 24 hours.
When the TB bacterium results in the illness of an individual, it is due to bacteria-filled cells that break and spread the contents to other cells found in the lungs, developing an infection that impairs the tissue in the lungs. Relatively, the person starts coughing, and the bacteria eventually spread.
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The Need for Host Cell to Die
According to Flo and her team, the only technique for the TB bacterium to spread is to get out of the cell where it stays in first. The bacteria then start to duplicate, and at some point, destroy the cell they stay in to further spread.
The tuberculosis bacterium also does this by punching holes in the membrane that surrounds the macrophages.
This then activates an explosive immune reaction where the cell that bacteria live in dies, causing them to spread to other cells.
Filming such a process lets scientists examine it much more accurately. As they do so, they can employ and execute this understanding in their work for the disease's treatment.
Flo elaborated that antibiotics are acting against the bacteria. However, they visualize the development of a treatment that could manage the death of the cell, not to mention, tissue impairment which the tuberculosis bacterium caused.
The expert also said that combined with antibiotics, this might offer a more efficient treatment. However, she shared that they are not yet there.
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Aug 07, 2020 06:51 AM EDT
