Genetic Risk of Tuberculosis is Spread within the Hallmarks of the Disease

Abstract

Regarding genetic predisposition to tuberculosis, we suggest that the maximal risk for clinical manifestation requires complementation of sub-risks divided among the hallmarks of the disease. Clinical tuberculosis would only be revealed if at least one from each group of the genes encoding putative 5 (perhaps 7) hallmarks of the disease are mutated or changed epigenetically. These mutations/changes could be either sporadic (usually by the influence of the environment like other infection [HIV], nutrition, smoking, radiation etc.) or inherited. Avoidance of the immune attack is one of the hallmarks for TB that is shared with cancer. Perhaps, a similar immunotherapy as the recent one used in treating immunogenic types of cancer (anti-PD1, or/and anti-CTLA4) could be also successful in therapy of (multi-drug) resistant TB.