Latent Tuberculosis: Models, Computational Efforts and the Pathogen’s Regulatory Mechanisms during Dormancy

Latent tuberculosis is a clinical syndrome that occurs after an individual has been exposed to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) Bacillus, the infection has been established and an immune response has been generated to control the pathogen and force it into a quiescent state. Mtb can exit this quiescent state where it is unresponsive to treatment and elusive to the immune response, and enter a rapid replicating state, hence causing infection reactivation. It remains a gray area to understand how the pathogen causes a persistent infection and it is unclear whether the organism will be in a slow replicating state or a dormant non-replicating state. The ability of the pathogen to adapt to changing host immune response mechanisms, in which it is exposed to hypoxia, low pH, nitric oxide (NO), nutrient starvation, and several other anti-microbial effectors, is associated with a high metabolic plasticity that enables it to metabolize under these different conditions. Adaptive gene regulatory mechanisms are thought to coordinate how the pathogen changes their metabolic pathways through mechanisms that sense changes in oxygen tension and other stress factors, hence stimulating the pathogen to make necessary adjustments to ensure survival. Here, we review studies that give insights into latency/dormancy regulatory mechanisms that enable infection persistence and pathogen adaptation to different stress conditions. We highlight what mathematical and computational models can do and what they should do to enhance our current understanding of TB latency.