Tuberculosis, humanity’s greatest infectious killer, is caused by bacteria that usually affect the lungs but can also affect many other organs in the body. In 2021, around 10.6 million people worldwide fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) and 1.6 million people died from the disease.
However, around 95% of people who are infected with the bacteria that cause TB don’t become ill. Their immune system manages to successfully destroy the bug.
My colleagues and I are interested in what makes some people susceptible to TB, while others appear to be protected. We use zebrafish to study the disease as their immune systems share many similarities with those of humans, and it is possible to manipulate their genes in the lab. In our latest study, published in the online journal PNAS, we have used this kind of manipulation to show the genes carried by many Ashkenazi Jews that put them at a higher risk of a rare disease also help protect them against TB.
