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Biophysics in the Understanding, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Infectious Diseases Speaker Abstracts
42
Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Growth in Dead Infected Cells Results in a Positive Feedback
Loop Driving Additional Cycles of Host Cell Death
Deeqa Mahamed
1
, Steven Skroch
1
, Lance Oom
1
, Gopelkrishna Sreejit
1
, Sameshnee
Chinnasamy
1
, Oana Catinas
1
, Myshnee Naicker
1
, Sanisha Rampersad
1
, Colisile Mathonsi
1
,
Jessica Hunter
1
, Alex Pym
1
, Gil Lustig
1
,
Alexander Sigal
1,2
.
1
KwaZulu Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV, Durban, South Africa,
2
Max Planck Institute
for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes heterogeneous infection in the same lung, ranging from
infection foci where infection is controlled to foci with active infection and host cell necrosis. To
understand what causes this heterogeneity, we used long-term live cell imaging to follow
infection of human macrophages. I will discuss our yet unpublished results indicating that
initiation of a cascade of cell death involving positive feedback provides a mechanism for the co-
existence of active and quiescent infection foci within the same individual.