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| Mycobacterium smegmatis: a model bacterium for tuberculosis and its current roles in research of infection and immunity |
| HOU Xiao-Qing, LIU Dan, WANG Yi |
| Department of Immunology and Pathogen Biology, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China |
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Abstract Mycobacterium smegmatis (M. smegmatis) is a Grampositive saprophytic bacterium, with the characteristics of fastgrowing, nonpathogenicity as well as the highly homologous genes and similar cellular structure with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis). M. smegmatis is an ideal model for mycobacterial infection and other related immune and infectious diseases. The applications of M. smegmatis in antituberculosis infection, immunoregulation and control of nontuberculosis infection are reviewed in the present paper.
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Received: 26 February 2014
Published: 25 December 2014
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Corresponding Authors:
WANG Yi
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