Host cell environments and antibiotic efficacy in tuberculosis

To cause disease and disseminate to other hosts, M. tuberculosis needs to replicate within human cells. Work in the last decades have shed light into some aspects of tuberculosis pathogenesis, however, we still do not understand how M. tuberculosis manages to survive within eukaryotic cells and why some cells are able to eradicate this lethal pathogen. This surprising gap in knowledge is in part due to the lack of appropriate imaging technologies that have precluded comprehensive understanding of the fundamental biology that underpins M. tuberculosis-host cell interactions. Our research focuses on the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the interactions between M. tuberculosis and host cells. We aim to dissect the host cell factors that contribute to M. tuberculosis control as well as the M. tuberculosis factors that this pathogen uses to highjack host cells. To this end, we use a variety of cutting-edge imaging approaches and model systems. In this seminar, I will present some recent data from our group regarding the environments where M. tuberculosis survives in human cells and the barriers that these environments represent for therapy.