ABSTRACT
Tuberculosis is a contagious infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, an obligate intracellular bacterium that relies on infection and host-to-host transmission to survive. In a co-evolutionary process, the pathogen developed virulence mechanisms to evade the host's immune system and endure a number of factors, such as cellular stress. One of the strategies used by pathogens to succeed in causing infection is the production of proteases, which are enzymes that cleave peptide bonds between the amino acids in a protein. Proteases are widely distributed in nature and have different roles considered important to the bacteria's biological cycle. M. tuberculosis has several protease coding genes in its genome, many of which with unknown functions, but several with recognized roles in the infection process. This review presents the literature researched from 2014 to 2018 that addressed the roles of the proteases involved in M. tuberculosis infection