Tuberculosis is a serious and lethal infectious disease that exists worldwide. There is a recognized need to understand the infectivity mechanisms used by mycobacterium to identify useful therapeutic and prophylactic targets. JHU researchers have generated a near-comprehensive library of over a thousand genotypically defined M. tuberculosis mutants. The library was made using high throughput transposon-mediated random insertion mutagenesis. This collection of mycobacterium mutants provides a vast resource of defined mutants that has not been previously available. Mutation sites have been genetically mapped and defined to provide a valuable resource for clinical, pharmaceutical and basic science research. JHU scientists have also developed custom microarrays to probe to track the presence or absence of the mutants during experimentation. Advantages:
Technical Details:
JHU researchers have generated a library of 1,183 genotypically defined Mycobacterium tuberculosis mutants using transposon-mediated random insertion mutagenesis. The transposon used to generate the library, Himar1, has a small but defined target site allowing the disruption of nearly all open reading frames, and a genetic map of the exact mutation sites has been compiled. In addition, custom microarrays have been developed to probe for the presence or absence of each mutant.
Looking for Partners:
This library can be commercialized as a tool for drug discovery and for comparative functional genomics studies.
