Frontiers in Biomedicine: Pr Russell Vance

17.10.2024 12:30 – 13:30

«Tuberculosis as an interferonopathy»

Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacterium that accounts for more human mortality than any other. Despite being identified more than 140 years ago, we lack a clear understanding of TB pathogenesis, and unfortunately, the mechanisms employed by M. tuberculosis to become the world’s most successful bacterial pathogen remain obscure. In this lecture, I will discuss the emerging view that tuberculosis can be considered a type of interferonopathy—a disease driven by type I interferons. Conventional interferonopathies are autoinflammatory diseases, without an infectious etiology, whereas tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium. Nevertheless, there may be some similarities between these two disease states. In both cases, type I interferons orchestrate an underlying state of immunosuppression that paradoxically co-exists with overt inflammation. Under this view, the fundamental virulence strategy of M. tuberculosis is to be intrinsically resistant to the inflammatory response while exploiting the underlying immunosuppression. Our hope is that conceiving tuberculosis as an unconventional interferonopathy may suggest fruitful avenues for therapeutic intervention.