Abstract
One of the important determinants to the disease outcome in Latent TB is the proposed role of Mce (Mammalian cell entry) proteins. Mce proteins, which are surface exposed or secreted, are found in clusters of 6, encoded in mce operons flanked by permease-like proteins and Mce associated proteins. Mce proteins have been proposed to play an important role for cell invasion, adaptation and survival within macrophages and nutrient utilisation in the hostile intracellular compartment and this project aims to dissect these roles for Mce proteins from the mce4 operon using structural and functional studies.
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