Tuberculosis is also resistant to many antibiotics, and 1.7 million people die every year worldwide. However, a new study by Notre Dame University (Notre Dame University, also known as Notre Dame de Paris) shows that new substances released by infected cells work with antibiotics to strengthen the body’s immune system and fight disease, showing that it can provide help.
This research was published in the "EMBO Report" led by Professor George B. Craig Jr's Jeffrey Schorey (Jeffrey Schorey) and Assistant Professor of the School of Biological Sciences Yong Cheng (Yong Cheng), revealing The process of transferring extracellular vesicles (EV) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis RNA to other cells. I did it. As well as electric shocks, trigger the immune system to attack TB.
Electric vehicles from viruses have been discovered for many years, but Schorey et al. discovered RNA from tuberculosis in electric vehicles. This discovery allowed the researchers to further study how these bacteria-derived RNA affect target cells, including cells infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. One of the important discoveries is the discovery of macrophages, which are natural immune cells. Treating these cells with electric vehicles derived from cells infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis can better control the infection. "So far, no studies have found that bacterial RNA in electric vehicles can activate this signal transduction pathway, and it is believed that this signal transduction pathway is mainly involved in the perception of viruses." Xiao Li said. Then, the authors determined that the EV-treated macrophages would produce substances such as reactive oxygen species, which promoted the infection of macrophages by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This is an important discovery because it will bring new directions for the future treatment of tuberculosis. Preliminary data from this study indicate that these electric vehicle-based antibiotic and immunotherapy combinations are more effective. These data from mouse models indicate that combination therapy kills more infected cells than monotherapy. The researchers' next plan is to use this method to treat other diseases. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of combining EVs (as immunotherapy) and antibiotics in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Every year, more than 10 million people worldwide suffer from tuberculosis. In the future, 2 billion people will be infected with this bacteria, which will cause people with reduced immunity to eventually get the disease.