Expression profile of mce4 operon of Mycobacterium tuberculosis following environmental stress

ABSTRACT

Background: The mce4 operon is one of the four mce operons with eight genes [yrbE4A, yrbE4B, mce4A, mce4B, mce4C, mce4D, mce4E and mce4F] of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It expresses in the later phase of infection and imports cholesterol for long term survival of the bacilli. To cause latent infection, M. tuberculosis undergoes metabolic reprogramming of its genes to survive in the hostile environment like low availability of oxygen and nutrition depletion inside the host