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Biomedicines
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Mycobacterial Infections: Insights into Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment
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Mycobacterial Infections: Insights into Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbiology in Human Health and Disease".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 3445

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Abhishek Mishra

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Pathology & Genomic Medicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA
Interests: mycobacterium tuberculosis; autophagy; infectious disease; genomic medicine; vaccine; free radical biology; microbiology; biochemistry; nanotechnology; genomics proteomics; immunology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Mycobacterial infections, particularly Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae, continue to pose significant global health challenges. This Special Issue, “Mycobacterial Infections: Insights into Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment”, will explore recent advancements in understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying these infections, their interactions with the host immune system, and emerging diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

Key topics will include the role of virulence factors in disease progression, co-infections with other bacterial or viral pathogens, and the impact of antimicrobial resistance on treatment efficacy. This Special Issue will also highlight novel diagnostic techniques, including molecular and biomarker-based approaches, as well as innovative therapeutic interventions, such as host-directed therapies, vaccine developments, and repurposed drugs.

By integrating perspectives from microbiology, immunology, and clinical research, this collection will provide a comprehensive understanding of tuberculosis and leprosy, guiding future strategies for effective disease control and management.

Dr. Abhishek Mishra
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomedicines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • mycobacterium
  • pathogenesis
  • host–pathogen interactions
  • virulence factors
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • diagnosis
  • therapeutics
  • host-directed therapy
  • vaccine development
  • drug resistance

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 5101 KB  
Article
A PTPRO-Related Five-Gene Blood Transcriptional Signature with Diagnostic Potential for Tuberculosis
by Fengjiao Wu, Ru Huang, Yuxuan Lin, Xixi Zhu, Yujie Li, Huiting Dai, Xiaoyu Zhou, Fang Fang, Ying Liang, Tao Xu, Chuanwang Song, Wei Li, Xiaojing Wang, Xianyou Chang, Hongtao Wang, Ting Wang, Jingzhu Lv and Zhongqing Qian
Biomedicines 2026, 14(5), 1021; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines14051021 - 30 Apr 2026
Viewed by 806
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), remains a major global health problem. Drug resistance and the limitations of sputum-based diagnostic methods highlight the need for additional host-response biomarkers. Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type O (PTPRO) has been implicated in inflammatory signaling [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), remains a major global health problem. Drug resistance and the limitations of sputum-based diagnostic methods highlight the need for additional host-response biomarkers. Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type O (PTPRO) has been implicated in inflammatory signaling and macrophage immune regulation, but its relationship with TB-related host transcriptional responses remains unclear. This study aimed to identify and preliminarily evaluate a PTPRO-related blood transcriptional signature with potential relevance to TB discrimination and treatment-response assessment. Methods: Genes correlated with PTPRO expression were first screened using TCGA-LUSC as a large human transcriptomic discovery resource. The resulting candidate genes were then filtered in TB-related whole-blood datasets by intersecting genes upregulated in TB compared with healthy controls, pneumonia, and lung cancer. This strategy yielded a five-gene PTPRO-related signature, termed PO5. The signature was evaluated in independent GEO cohorts and further explored by RT-qPCR in H37Ra-infected THP-1-derived macrophages and in a small clinical blood cohort. A PO5-derived TB risk score was calculated for each sample, and receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to assess discriminatory performance. Changes in TB risk scores during anti-TB treatment were also examined. Results: PTPRO expression was increased in TB whole-blood transcriptomic data and in H37Ra-infected macrophages. In public datasets, PO5 showed potential for distinguishing TB from healthy controls, latent TB, pneumonia, and lung cancer. PO5-derived TB risk scores also decreased after anti-TB treatment. In the exploratory clinical cohort, several PO5 genes showed expression changes in the same general direction as those observed in the public datasets, although the small sample size limited the strength of this evidence. Conclusions: PO5 represents a preliminary PTPRO-related blood transcriptional signature with potential relevance to TB discrimination and treatment-response assessment. These findings remain exploratory and require validation in larger prospective multicenter cohorts, together with further mechanistic studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycobacterial Infections: Insights into Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment)
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Review

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26 pages, 1591 KB  
Review
Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing in Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis: WHO Guidance and Practical Implementation Priorities
by Sungwon Jung
Biomedicines 2026, 14(1), 93; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines14010093 - 2 Jan 2026
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2052
Abstract
Targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) closes the gap between point-of-care rapid tests and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (pDST) in drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB). The 2025 World Health Organization (WHO) consolidated guidelines and the operational handbook place tNGS after initial automated nucleic acid amplification tests (aNAATs) [...] Read more.
Targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) closes the gap between point-of-care rapid tests and phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (pDST) in drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB). The 2025 World Health Organization (WHO) consolidated guidelines and the operational handbook place tNGS after initial automated nucleic acid amplification tests (aNAATs) for the delivery of catalogue-linked molecular drug susceptibility testing (DST) for a broad drug panel, reserving whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and/or pDST for discordance resolution, confirmation, and surveillance. This review summarizes (i) the core tNGS principles and panel design; (ii) platform-specific workflows for Illumina and Nanopore, including direct-from-sample implementations and typical turnaround times; (iii) catalogue-based interpretation against the 2023 WHO Mycobacterium tuberculosis mutation catalogue, with emphasis on bedaquiline/clofazimine (BDQ/CFZ) resistance and management of uncertain variants; (iv) pooled accuracy and sources of genotype–phenotype discordance; and (v) practical requirements for bioinformatics, quality assurance/external quality assessment (QA/EQA), and standardized reporting. We summarize operational and economic considerations (throughput, batching, and network design) to clarify where tNGS adds value compared with alternative strategies and to outline priority research needs, including (i) performance standards for culture-free tNGS, (ii) robust heteroresistance detection, (iii) standardized variant curation, and (iv) data-sharing frameworks to refine genotype–phenotype links. When embedded within validated QA/EQA frameworks and catalogue-linked reporting systems, tNGS can shorten the time to effective therapy by rapidly informing fluoroquinolone (FQ) susceptibility and providing early, tiered resistance signals for newer agents (e.g., BDQ), with indeterminate findings prompting reflex pDST/WGS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mycobacterial Infections: Insights into Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment)
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