{"id":980,"date":"2020-04-27T09:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-27T09:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mbhgblog\/?p=980"},"modified":"2020-06-10T16:25:15","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T16:25:15","slug":"scientists-recreate-tb-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mbhgblog\/2020\/04\/27\/scientists-recreate-tb-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"[:en]Scientists recreate Tuberculosis (TB) infection: Coupling cellular infection models with Fluorescence Microscopy[:]"},"content":{"rendered":"

[:en]Imagine if the human body was as transparent as a jellyfish. This would mean that as we take a bite of an apple, we can track how it goes from the mouth to the stomach, how it gets digested and circulated all through the body. Life will be a lot easier for scientists if this were the case. <\/span><\/p>\n

The bacterium that causes Tuberculosis<\/a>– Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M.tb <\/i>for short enters the body through inhalation. It then travels to the lungs where it stays and causes an infection. Looking at an infected patient, we cannot see the bug neither can we see how it causes an infection. We definitely cannot cut the patient open just to see what is happening inside. How then do TB researchers understand how TB causes disease? The answer is simple: we mimic and recreate. <\/span><\/p>\n

We know that our body is made up of billions of cells<\/a> and that each cell is functional on its own. Over the years researchers have been able to isolate living cells from humans and grow it up in a little dish<\/a>, provided we give it the right nutrients and temperature conditions. How amazing! Similarly for bacterial cells like M. tb<\/i>, we can isolate it from a TB patient, grow it in a dish and use it for different experiments. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>The use of cellular models, such as this, is a widely appreciated technique in biomedical research<\/a>. In TB research, it helps us answer questions such as- <\/span><\/p>\n