Immunological basis of early clearance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection: the role of natural killer cells.

Immunological basis of early clearance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection: the role of natural killer cells. Clin Exp Immunol. 2020 Dec 14;: Authors: Abebe F Abstract Tuberculosis kills more people than any other single infectious disease globally. Despite decades of research, there is no vaccine to prevent TB transmission. Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine developed a century ago, is effective against childhood (disseminated and miliary) TB. However, its protective efficacy against pulmonary TB varies from 0-80% in different populations. One of the main reasons for lack of an effective vaccine against TB is lack of complete understanding about correlates of protective immunity on which to base vaccine design and development. However, some household contacts who are extensively exposed to Mtb infection remain persistently negative to tuberculin skin test and interferon-gamma assay. These individuals called "resisters" clear Mtb infection early before the development of acquired immunity. The immunological basis of early Mtb clearance is yet to be established, however, innate lymphocytes such as monocytes/macrophages, dendritic cells, neutrophils and natural killer cells, and innate like T cells such as mucosal associated invariant T cells, invariant natural killer T cells and gamma-delta (γδ) T cells have been implicated in this early protection. In recent years, NK cells have attracted increasing attention because of thei...
Source: Clinical and Developmental Immunology - Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Tags: Clin Exp Immunol Source Type: research