To feast among the starving: facultative anaerobiosis by Mycobacterium avium.

鸟分枝杆菌是一种生长缓慢的细菌，主要存在于咸淡水和土壤中，可引起动物和人类的慢性感染。了解细菌病原体通过代谢重塑和采用各种呼吸方法来适应宿主免疫反应的策略对于降低感染率至关重要。呼吸的方法对像鸟分枝杆菌这样的环境细菌尤其重要，因为它们可以在恶劣的环境中生存。分枝杆菌基因组高度气相色谱偏倚，导致歧义基因属性的频率更高。这些模棱两可的术语包括“假设的”、“假定的”或“可能的”，这使得识别关键的代谢途径，从而预测鸟分枝杆菌和潜在的其他分类相关物种的呼吸机制变得模糊。在这个项目中，我们将调查非结核分枝杆菌（NTM）， M. avium在环境挑战条件下的生存能力。为了使鸟分枝杆菌在苛刻的条件下增殖，我们预测各种呼吸复合物将参与调节代谢。从这项研究中，我们的目标是更好地了解在哪里可以找到鸟分枝杆菌，未来的目的是减少易感人群的感染。

Mycobacterium avium, a slow-growing bacterium predominantly found in brackish water and soil, can cause chronic infections in animal and human populations. Understanding strategies by which bacterial pathogens adapt to the host immune response through metabolic remodelling and by employing various methods of respiration is crucial in reducing the infection rate. The method of respiration is especially important for environmental bacteria like M. avium which can survive in demanding environments. Mycobacterial genomes are highly GC-biased resulting in greater frequency of ambiguous gene attributes. These ambiguous terms including 'hypothetical', 'putative' or 'probable' have made identifying the key metabolic pathways and thus predicting respiratory mechanisms by M. avium and potentially other taxonomically related species being obscured. In this project we will investigate the ability of the non-tuberculous mycobacterium, (NTM), M. avium to survive in environmentally challenging conditions. For M. avium to proliferate in the demanding conditions, we predict that various respiratory complexes will be involved to regulate metabolism. From this research, we aim to have a better understanding of where M. avium can be found with the future purpose to reduce infections in susceptible populations.