24 October 2019

Anti-arthritis drug a stops tuberculosis bacillus from multiplying in blood stem cells

Tuberculosis (TB) may affect any part of the body, but the spread of the disease might start in the bone marrow. Immunologists from KU Leuven and Brazil have shown that the TB bacillus hijacks the blood stem cells from the bone marrow to turn them into ideal host cells for multiplication. They also found that this mechanism can be stopped by administering an anti-arthritis drug.