Separable roles for Mycobacterium tuberculosis ESX-3 effectors in iron acquisition and virulence.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) encodes five type VII secretion systems (T7SS), designated ESX-1-ESX-5, that are critical for growth and pathogenesis. The best characterized is ESX-1, which profoundly impacts host cell interactions. In contrast, the ESX-3 T7SS is implicated in metal homeostasis, but efforts to define its function have been limited by an inability to recover deletion mutants.

The Complete Genome Sequence of the Emerging Pathogen Mycobacterium haemophilum Explains Its Unique Culture Requirements.

Unlabelled: Mycobacterium haemophilum is an emerging pathogen associated with a variety of clinical syndromes, most commonly skin infections in immunocompromised individuals. M. haemophilum exhibits a unique requirement for iron supplementation to support its growth in culture, but the basis for this property and how it may shape pathogenesis is unclear.

Enhanced specialized transduction using recombineering in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Unlabelled: G: enetic engineering has contributed greatly to our understanding of Mycobacterium tuberculosis biology and has facilitated antimycobacterial and vaccine development. However, methods to generate M. tuberculosis deletion mutants remain labor-intensive and relatively inefficient.