Study Challenges Assumptions About How Tuberculosis Bacteria Grow
Tufts UniversityThe rod-shaped tuberculosis (TB) bacterium, which the World Health Organization has once again ranked as the top infectious disease killer globally, is the first single-celled organism ever observed to maintain a consistent growth rate throughout its life cycle. These findings, reported by researchers on November 15 in the journal Nature Microbiology, overturn core beliefs of bacterial cell biology and hint at why the deadly pathogen so readily outmaneuvers our immune system and antibiotics.