Antimycobacterial Attributes of Mitochondria: An Insight into Host Defense Mechanisms

Tuberculosis (TB) is a major global health problem caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly one third of the global population is infected with TB [1]. MTB is inhaled in the form of aerosols and primarily infect the alveolar macrophage inside the lungs. As the bacteria have co-evolved with humans over the course of thousands of years, MTB has developed several mechanisms to escape from the host defense machinery and replicate and survive intracellularly. MTB secrete various virulence factors, which modulate macrophage functions by preventing phagosome-lysosome fusion, blocking phagosomal acidification, manipulating host cell proteins, and, perhaps most importantly, by regulating cell death pathways through targeting of cellular organelles, such as mitochondria [2, 3].