Dr. Maziar Divangahi’s May 2018 publication in Science Immunology tries to explain why the vast majority of people infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) can tolerate the infection without developing disease.
Dr. Divangahi’s team found that rather than fighting to resist the pathogen, the body’s tolerance to Mtb is the key mechanism for preventing the spread of the infection. More surprisingly, they found that having excessive levels of T cells, which are known as soldiers of our immune system, could cause more harm than good. The study determined that the mitochondrial protein cyclophilin D (CypD) acts as a key checkpoint for T cell metabolism and regulates disease tolerance in TB. (May 2018)
Read the publication here:
Mitochondrial cyclophilin D regulates T cell metabolic responses and disease tolerance to tuberculosis. Tzelepis F, Blagih J, Khan N, Gillard J, Mendonca L, Roy DG, Ma EH, Joubert P, Jones RG, Divangahi M. Sci Immunol. 2018 May 11;3(23):eaar4135.
View articles and interviews about this research:
- Beyond Killing Tuberculosis. How can we tolerate an infection without eliminating a pathogen? McGill Newsroom. May 14, 2018
- Is tolerating TB a better way to go than resisting it? Posted on Futurity.com by Julie Robert. May 15, 2018.
- Ending Tuberculosis In Humans By Learning To Tolerate It. Posted on Science 2.0. May 14, 2018