UPTON, NY — Scientists looking for new ways to fight tuberculosis (TB) have their sights set on a structure essential to the bacterium's survival. Disabling this structure could kill the microbes in the infected host and thwart TB infections. In a study appearing online May 11, 2010, in EMBO J, the journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), and Weill Cornell Medical College describe new features of how this structure, known as a proteasome, is put together and how it works. These details could assist researchers working to develop anti-TB drugs.
"Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB, infects one person in three worldwide, so finding new ways to battle this pathogen is a major public health priority —particularly in developing nations where active TB infections are endemic," said study co-author Huilin Li, a Brookhaven biophysicist and associate professor at SBU.
Earlier studies by Li and his collaborators revealed important structural details of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteasome, a piece of cellular machinery that carves up unwanted or damaged proteins, allowing the bacterium to evade a key defense of the human immune system.* The team has even identified small molecules that might be incorporated into drugs to inhibit the proteasome. "The primary aim of this new study was to look at how the proteasome, comprised of 28 proteins, is constructed," said Li.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/dnl-ndo051010.php
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