S. Arruda et al., CLONING OF AN MYCOBACTERIUM-TUBERCULOSIS DNA FRAGMENT ASSOCIATED WITHENTRY AND SURVIVAL INSIDE CELLS, Science, 261(5127), 1993, pp. 1454-1457
Mycobacterium tuberculosis infects one-third of the world's human popu
lation. This widespread infection depends on the organism's ability to
escape host defenses by gaining entry and surviving inside the macrop
hage. DNA sequences of M. tuberculosis have been cloned; these confer
on a nonpathogenic Escherichia coli strain an ability to invade HeLa c
ells, augment macrophage phagocytosis, and survive for at least 24 hou
rs inside the human macrophage. This capacity to gain entry into mamma
lian cells and survive inside the macrophage was localized to two dist
inct loci on the cloned M. tuberculosis DNA fragment.