ArticleCellular microbiology2018
Mycobacteria employ two different mechanisms to cross the blood-brain barrier.
Article in Cellular microbiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- Pathogenesis of tubercular retinal vasculitis: An ongoing quest.Journal of clinical tuberculosis and other mycobacterial diseases · 2026Article
- Mycobacteria trehalose dimycolate interactions with host Mincle remodel blood-brain barrier junctions for brain invasion.Cell reports · 2025Article
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- Diving into drug-screening: zebrafish embryos as an in vivo platform for antimicrobial drug discovery and assessment.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Preclinical Models for Cryptococcosis of the CNS and Their Characterization Using In Vivo Imaging Techniques.Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Baculovirus entry into the central nervous system ofOpen biology · 2024Article
- Vaccines and Dementia: Part I. Non-Specific Immune Boosting with BCG: History, Ligands, and Receptors.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2024Review
- Effects ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- A preclinical model of TB meningitis to determine drug penetration and activity at the sites of disease.Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2023Article
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- Role of Oxidative Stress in Tuberculosis Meningitis Infection in Diabetics.Biomedicines · 2023Review
- A terpene nucleoside from M. tuberculosis induces lysosomal lipid storage in foamy macrophages.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- A nontuberculous mycobacterium could solve the mystery of the lady from the Franciscan church in Basel, Switzerland.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Tuberculosis meningitis coexisting with HIV Infection: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in tuberculosis · 2023Review
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- Using zebrafish to understand reciprocal interactions between the nervous and immune systems and the microbial world.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2022Review
- Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Central nervous system (CNS) infection by Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the most devastating complications of tuberculosis, in particular in early childhood. In order to induce CNS infection, M. tuberculosis needs to cross specialised barriers protecting the brain. How M. tuberculosis crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enters the CNS is not well understood. Here, we use transparent zebrafish larvae and the closely related pathogen Mycobacterium marinum to answer this question. We show that in the early stages of development, mycobacteria rapidly infect brain tissue, either as free mycobacteria or within circulating macrophages. After the formation of a functionally intact BBB, the infiltration of brain tissue by infected macrophages is delayed, but not blocked, suggesting that crossing the BBB via phagocytic cells is one of the mechanisms used by mycobacteria to invade the CNS. Interestingly, depletion of phagocytic cells did not prevent M. marinum from infecting the brain tissue, indicating that free mycobacteria can independently cause brain infection. Detailed analysis showed that mycobacteria are able to cause vasculitis by extracellular outgrowth in the smaller blood vessels and by infecting endothelial cells. Importantly, we could show that this second mechanism is an active process that depends on an intact ESX-1 secretion system, which extends the role of ESX-1 secretion beyond the macrophage infection cycle.
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