An effective way to combat tuberculosis has been discovered

Scientists reveal tuberculosis' secret weapon: revolutionary discovery by British researchers may change the approach to treating the dangerous disease

At the center of the discovery is the DarT enzyme, which places a special modifying group on the bacteria's DNA, temporarily halting replication and translation processes. Notably, this process is reversible thanks to a second enzyme - DarG, which can remove these chemical markers.

Scientists have created a detailed map of such modifications for the first time and discovered that they accumulate particularly intensively at the starting point of DNA replication, as well as in genes responsible for responding to stressful conditions and metal deficiency.

The experimental results were impressive: when researchers deprived the bacteria of the ability to remove these modifications, it stopped growing and lost viability. This discovery could become the foundation for developing fundamentally new methods to combat tuberculosis, including its resistant forms, which can hide in the body in an inactive state for years.

The study gains special significance from the fact that the discovered regulatory system represents the first documented case where DNA base modification directly affects gene expression in a living organism.