TY - JOUR
T1 - A world without tuberculosis
T2 - moving from imagination to reality
AU - Jacobs, William R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Society for Clinical Investigation. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/9/15
Y1 - 2022/9/15
N2 - Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, remains a leading cause of death from an infectious agent, resulting in more than a million deaths per year. Despite vaccines and chemotherapies, patients often harbor persister M. tuberculosis cells that resist immune assault and chemotherapeutic treatments, resulting in a latent TB infection (LTBI). In this issue of the JCI, Sharan et al. used an aerosol-based macaque model to show that weekly treatments with isoniazid and rifapentine for 3 months reduced active M. tuberculosis infection and LTBI. Lung tissue from treated animals showed fewer granulomas when compared with the untreated control animals. These findings suggest that it is possible to eliminate persister M. tuberculosis cells, thereby eliminating LTBI. If similar elimination routinely occurs in patients undergoing the isoniazid and rifapentine treatment, the hidden reservoir of M. tuberculosis associated with LTBI would be greatly reduced, allowing us to imagine, and eventually achieve, a world without TB.
AB - Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection, remains a leading cause of death from an infectious agent, resulting in more than a million deaths per year. Despite vaccines and chemotherapies, patients often harbor persister M. tuberculosis cells that resist immune assault and chemotherapeutic treatments, resulting in a latent TB infection (LTBI). In this issue of the JCI, Sharan et al. used an aerosol-based macaque model to show that weekly treatments with isoniazid and rifapentine for 3 months reduced active M. tuberculosis infection and LTBI. Lung tissue from treated animals showed fewer granulomas when compared with the untreated control animals. These findings suggest that it is possible to eliminate persister M. tuberculosis cells, thereby eliminating LTBI. If similar elimination routinely occurs in patients undergoing the isoniazid and rifapentine treatment, the hidden reservoir of M. tuberculosis associated with LTBI would be greatly reduced, allowing us to imagine, and eventually achieve, a world without TB.
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U2 - 10.1172/JCI162688
DO - 10.1172/JCI162688
M3 - Article
C2 - 36106635
AN - SCOPUS:85137847402
SN - 0021-9738
VL - 132
JO - Journal of Clinical Investigation
JF - Journal of Clinical Investigation
IS - 18
M1 - e162688
ER -