Characterizations of the Mycobacterium avium phagosome compartment. (Research Report)

According to an abstract submitted by the author to the Conference on Frontiers in Mycobacteriology and Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, held October 12-16, 1994, in Vail, Colorado, "Endoparasites have evolved a wide variety of strategies to evade destruction by phagocytic cells. One of these pathogens, Mycobacterium avium, which is responsible for severe disseminated infections in patients with AIDS, remains confined to the macrophage (mf) phagosome compartment in which it survives and multiplies. It resists the bactericidal activity of mf by impairing phagosome-lysosome (PH-LY) fusion events which results in a reduced delivery of hydrolytic enzymes to phagosomes. In the …