An approach for studying the mediators of pathogenesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an example of an intracellular pathogen that mediates the disease state through complex interactions with the host's immune system. Not only does this organism replicate in the hostile environment prevailing within the infected macrophage, but it has also developed intricate mechanisms to inhibit several defence mechanisms of the host's immune system. It is postulated here that the mediators of these interactions with the host are products of differentially expressed genes in the pathogen, B and T fell responses of the host are hence to be used as tools to identify such gene products from an expression library of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome. The various pathways of generating a productive immune response that may be targeted by the pathogen are discussed.