Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) as a Potential Point of Care Laboratory Test for Leprosy Diagnosis-A Systematic Review.

Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by and mainly affects skin, peripheral nerves, and eyes. Suitable tools for providing bacteriological evidence of leprosy are needed for early case detection and appropriate therapeutic management. Ideally these tools are applicable at all health care levels for the effective control of leprosy.

Novel functions of (p)ppGpp and Cyclic di-GMP in mycobacterial physiology revealed by phenotype microarray analysis of wild-type and isogenic strains of Mycobacterium smegmatis.

The bacterial second messengers (p)ppGpp and bis-(3'-5')-cyclic dimeric GMP (c-di-GMP) regulate important functions, such as transcription, virulence, biofilm formation, and quorum sensing. In mycobacteria, they regulate long-term survival during starvation, pathogenicity, and dormancy. Recently, a Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain lacking (p)ppGpp was shown to be sensitive to multiple classes of antibiotics and defective in biofilm formation.

A full-length bifunctional protein involved in c-di-GMP turnover is required for long-term survival under nutrient starvation in Mycobacterium smegmatis.

The bacterial second messenger cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP) plays an important role in a variety of cellular functions, including biofilm formation, alterations in the cell surface, host colonization and regulation of bacterial flagellar motility, which enable bacteria to survive changing environmental conditions. The cellular level of c-di-GMP is regulated by a balance between opposing activities of diguanylate cyclases (DGCs) and cognate phosphodiesterases (PDE-As). Here, we report the presence and importance of a protein, MSDGC-1 (an orthologue of Rv1354c in Mycobacterium tuberculosis), involved in c-di-GMP turnover in Mycobacterium smegmatis.

Unveiling the role of Dps in the organization of mycobacterial nucleoid.

In order to preserve genetic information in stress conditions, bacterial DNA is organized into higher order nucleoid structure. In this paper, with the help of Atomic Force Microscopy, we show the different structural changes in mycobacterial nucleoid at different points of growth in the presence of different concentrations of glucose in the medium. We also observe that in Mycobacterium smegmatis, two different Dps proteins (Dps1 and Dps2) promote two types of nucleoid organizations.