title: [Human mycobacterial infections: impact of host genetic factors].
abstract: Humans are exposed worldwide to a variety of environmental mycobacteria (EM) and most children are inoculated with live Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Although rarely pathogenic, poorly virulent mycobacteria, including BCG and most EM, may cause a variety of clinical diseases. M. tuberculosis and M. leprae are more virulent, causing tuberculosis, and leprosy, respectively. Remarkably, only a minority of individuals develop clinical disease, even if infected with virulent mycobacteria. There is now accumulating evidence that the large interindividual variability of clinical outcome results in part from variability in the human genes that control host defense. We review here in current knowledge about genetic predisposition to common (leprosy and tuberculosis) and rare (BCG and EM infections) mycobacterial infections.
authors.affiliation: INSERM U550, Laboratoire de Génétique Humaine des Maladies Infectieuses (GHMI), Faculté de Médecine Necker-Enfants Malades, 156 rue de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Plancoulaine
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alcaïs
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Abel
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Casanova
mesh_terms: D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D007918:Leprosy / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics; D009161:Mycobacterium / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D009164:Mycobacterium Infections / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000209:etiology / Q000235:genetics