By 2040, a third of tuberculosis cases in Russia are predicted to be drug-resistant, compared with one in ten in India and the Philippines, and one in 20 in South Africa, suggest researchers.
Researchers from the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (VIGG) and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have established a catalog of mutations in 319 virulence genes of mycobacteria that cause tuberculosis.
A mutation in an immune system gene rapidly rose in frequency in Southeast Asia approximately 50,000 years ago because it likely conferred protection against leprosy, which spread to the region from Africa around the same time.
A natural mechanism by which our cells kill the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis (TB) has been discovered, which could help in the battle against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Individuals with a slender lower face are about 25 percent more likely to be left-handed. This unexpected finding was identified in 13,536 individuals who participated in three national surveys conducted in the United States.
A study has found evidence that extremely small changes in how atoms move in bacterial proteins can play a big role in how these microorganisms function and evolve traits, such as antibiotic resistance.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended the use in all settings of a next-generation Xpert® MTB/RIF assay (called Xpert® MTB/RIF Ultra) as a replacement for the current Xpert MTB/RIF® cartridge.
