Mycobacteria, including most of all MTB (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), cause pathogenic infections in humans and, during the infectious process, are exposed to a range of environmental insults, including the host's immune response. From the moment MTB is exhaled by infected individuals, through an active and latent phase in the body of the new host, until the time they reach the reactivation stage, MTB is exposed to many types of DNA-damaging agents. Like all cellular organisms, MTB has efficient DNA repair systems, and these are believed to play essential roles in mycobacterial pathogenesis. As different stages of infection have great variation in the conditions in which mycobacteria reside, it is possible that different repair systems are essential for progression to specific phases of infection. MTB possesses homologues of DNA repair systems that are found widely in other species of bacteria, such as nucleotide excision repair, base excision repair and repair by homologous recombination. MTB also possesses a system for non-homologous end-joining of DNA breaks, which appears to be widespread in prokaryotes, although its presence is sporadic within different species within a genus. However, MTB does not possess homologues of the typical mismatch repair system that is found in most bacteria. Recent studies have demonstrated that DNA repair genes are expressed differentially at each stage of infection. In the present review, we focus on different DNA repair systems from mycobacteria and identify questions that remain in our understanding of how these systems have an impact upon the infection processes of these important pathogens.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Review Article|
May 25 2010
DNA repair systems and the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: varying activities at different stages of infection
Alina E. Gorna;
Alina E. Gorna
*Institute of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Immunology, University of Lodz, Lodz 90-231, Poland
†Institute for Medical Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lodz 93-232, Poland
Search for other works by this author on:
Richard P. Bowater;
Richard P. Bowater
‡School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Search for other works by this author on:
Jaroslaw Dziadek
†Institute for Medical Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lodz 93-232, Poland
Correspondence: Dr Jaroslaw Dziadek (email [email protected]).
Search for other works by this author on:
Publisher: Portland Press Ltd
Received:
January 18 2010
Revision Received:
April 06 2010
Accepted:
April 12 2010
Online ISSN: 1470-8736
Print ISSN: 0143-5221
© The Authors Journal compilation © 2010 Biochemical Society
2010
Clin Sci (Lond) (2010) 119 (5): 187–202.
Article history
Received:
January 18 2010
Revision Received:
April 06 2010
Accepted:
April 12 2010
Citation
Alina E. Gorna, Richard P. Bowater, Jaroslaw Dziadek; DNA repair systems and the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: varying activities at different stages of infection. Clin Sci (Lond) 1 August 2010; 119 (5): 187–202. doi: https://doi.org/10.1042/CS20100041
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Sign in to your personal account
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Could not validate captcha. Please try again.
Biochemical Society Member Sign in
Sign InSign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionGet Access To This Article
Open Access for all
We offer compliant routes for all authors from 2025. With library support, there will be no author nor reader charges in 5 journals. Check here |
![]() |