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

禽分枝杆菌是一种生长缓慢的细菌，主要存在于微咸水和土壤中，可以在动物和人类群体中引起慢性感染。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。呼吸的方法对于像禽类分支杆菌这样能够在苛刻环境中生存的环境细菌来说尤其重要。分枝杆菌基因组高度偏向GC，导致基因属性模糊的频率更高。这些模棱两可的术语，包括“假设的”、“推定的”或“可能的”，使得确定关键的代谢途径，从而预测鸟类分枝杆菌和其他潜在的分类学上相关物种的呼吸机制变得模糊。在这个项目中，我们将研究非结核分枝杆菌(NTM)，鸟分支杆菌在具有环境挑战性的条件下生存的能力。为了在严酷的条件下繁殖，我们预测将涉及各种呼吸复合体来调节新陈代谢。通过这项研究，我们的目标是更好地了解在哪里可以找到禽类分枝杆菌，以期在未来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.