Structural insights of infectious diseases

Abstract

Infectious diseases are a major public health problem from ancient times. Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is as old as mankind and remains today one of the major causes of mortality and morbility. The development of medicine improved the life expectancy but also brought some drawbacks. Today the healthcare associated infections (HAI) are a huge concern, being bacteria biofilm assembly closely related to the onset and spread of these infections.

In this talk we will explore a link between the structure of the etiological agent and its pathogenesis. For M. tuberculosis (Figure 1) it was possible to relate bacteria cell envelope thickness with antibiotic resistance and intracellular persistence. Whereas for several etiological agents of HAIs it was possible to link biofilm assembly with antibiotic resistance (Figure 2).