Life Sciences Commons^™

Glyoxylate Metabolism In Mycobacterium Smegmatis, Lubomir Nikolaev Merkov

Student Theses and Dissertations

Much has been learned about Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, “the great white plague,” since the bacterium was isolated and initially characterized by Robert Koch over a century ago. Over the last decade, new genetic tools for manipulation of the bacterium have been developed, its genome has been sequenced, and the search for new vaccines and drug targets has greatly intensified. Yet, surprisingly little is known about which mycobacterial genes are truly important for the organism’s ability to persist in the tissues of its human hosts. The metabolic pathways used by the tubercle bacillus to establish and maintain …