Individual Mycobacteria That Causes Tuberculosis (TB) Reacts Differently To Antibiotics, Says Tufts University Researchers

Tuberculosis (TB), which is an infectious disease that resulted from the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is one of the world's most common infectious diseases.

Each year, Tuberculosis infecting almost 10 million people across the globe. Giving medical care to the disease can be challenging and it is necessary for a combination of multiple antibiotics delivered over several months. The requirement is due to variations in antibiotic tolerance among subpopulations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tufts University School of Medicine researchers has now identified specific combinations of factors that are connected to the reason why individual mycobacteria of the same genetic background can react in a different manner to antibiotics, based on the report of Eurek Alert.

Bacteria that were smaller at birth were more likely to be influenced to antibiotics, while the larger cells in the middle of a cell cycle were able to endure antibiotics.

The findings on June 30, 2016, that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brought enlightenment on the complexity of antibiotic tolerance and the future design of drug prescribed course of medical treatment may improve.

The senior study author Bree Aldridge, Ph.D., who is also an assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology at Tufts University School of Medicine, stated that their study shows the bacteria in a population that they thought of as being identical are actually not. And the size differences of bacteria are connected with differences in how they respond to drug treatment.

On the other hand, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services stated that Tar Heel State's statistics of the number of foreign-born cases of active tuberculosis (TB) increased 8.3 percent. From 84 active tuberculosis in 2014 to 91 in 2015, according to Breitbart.

North Carolina's percentage of active TB cases that were foreign-born increased from 2014's 44 percent to 46 percent in 2015. But, still below the national rate of 66 percent of 2015's foreign-born active TB cases.