Investigation of protein interaction networks in mycobacterium tuberculosis using computational approaches

Abstract

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the prevalent infectious diseases caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is one of the airborne diseases which spread from person to person through the air. TB is of two types, latent and active TB. In case of the latent TB, the pathogen infects human macrophage cells and remains in an inactive state. It is a non-contagious with no symptoms. Sometimes, it may get converted to the active TB. In case of the active TB, the pathogen multiples in the macrophage cells causing disease. It is contagious to other persons. Symptoms of the active TB include cough, fever, night sweats, weight loss, etc. TB is generally diagnosed through tuberculin skin test where tuberculin, a purified protein derivative of the pathogen, is injected in the patient just below the inside forearm. The injected site is checked after 2 to 3 days for red hard bump. If the bump swells up to specific size, the patient is diagnosed to have TB disease. In order to confirm the disease, other tests such as blood tests, chest X-rays and sputum tests are performed alongside the skin test. All the patients detected with either active or inactive TB are prescribed with medications depending upon the age, overall health and resistance to drugs. The patients detected with inactive TB may require only one kind of antibiotic while the patients with active TB may require multiple drugs. Period of treatment of the patients with drugs vary from 6 months to few years. If the patients do not take the entire TB treatment course, the pathogen may get resistance to drugs causing multi-drug resistance (MDR) TB which is difficult to be treated. Therefore patients detected with TB are provided with proper medication and correct administration. In certain cases, the patients are recommended for Directly Observation Therapy (DOT) where a healthcare worker administers the TB medication to the patients in order to ensure the full course of treatment. In the patients diagnosed with HIV, diabetes or cancer, the treatment of TB becomes harder. If the TB is left untreated, it becomes fatal affecting kidneys, brain and heart. The vast majority of the TB cases are curable with proper medications and treatments elsewise two-third of the world‘s population would die due to TB.