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Nitric Oxide and Mycobacterium leprae Pathogenicity
Author(s) -
Visca Paolo,
Fabozzi Giulia,
Milani Mario,
Bolognesi Martino,
Ascenzi Paolo
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
iubmb life
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.132
H-Index - 113
eISSN - 1521-6551
pISSN - 1521-6543
DOI - 10.1080/15216540214542
Subject(s) - pathogenicity , microbiology and biotechnology , mycobacterium leprae , nitric oxide , biology , leprosy , immunology , endocrinology
Leprosy is an old, still dreaded infectious disease caused by the obligate intracellular bacterium Mycobacterium leprae . During the infectious process, M. leprae is faced with the host macrophagic environment, where the oxidative stress and NO release, combined with low pH, low pO 2, and high pCO 2, contribute to limit the growth of the bacilli. Comparative genomics has unraveled massive gene decay in M. leprae, linking the strictly parasitic lifestyle with the reductive genome evolution. Compared with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis, the leprosy bacillus has lost most of the genes involved in the detoxification of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. The very low reactivity of the unique truncated hemoglobin retained by M. leprae could account for the susceptibility of this exceptionally slow‐growing microbe to NO.