**Meet the editor**

After obtaining his MD at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Pere-Joan Cardona started an internship in Clinical Microbiology in 1994, in the Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, where he was familiarized with the problem of TB in its clinical and diagnostic challenges. Invited by Ian Orme at CSU, he was trained on the development of TB experimental models. PhD was obtained in 1999. He

became Head of the Experimental Tuberculosis Unit at the Institut Germans Trias i Pujol of Badalona and Assistant Professor of Microbiology at UAB. He has been involved for the last 15 years in the study of the pathophysiology of TB infection. Additionally, he has authored 70 peer-reviewed publications in the field and is responsible for the development of different experimental models in mice, guinea pigs, goats and mini-pigs, and in the development of new drug regimens and vaccines against TB.

Contents

**Preface IX** 

Chapter 1 **Molecular Biomarkers** 

**Part 1 The "Quiet" Genome 1** 

**for Ancient Tuberculosis 3**  David E. Minnikin, Oona Y-C. Lee, Houdini H.T. Wu, Gurdyal S. Besra

Chapter 2 **Genomic Variability of** *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* **37**  María Mercedes Zambrano, Ginna Hernández-Neuta,

> Iván Hernández-Neuta, Andrea Sandoval, Andrés Cubillos-Ruiz, Alejandro Reyes

María del Carmen Menéndez, Sofía Samper,

Chapter 5 **Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Signaling via c-AMP 103** 

Chapter 6 *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* **RD-1 Secreted Antigens** 

*In Vivo* **Studies – A Key to Understand the Pathogen Adaptation Mechanism 129**  Tatyana Azhikina and Timofey Skvortsov

**as Protective and Risk Factors for Tuberculosis 117** 

and Helen D. Donoghue

and Patricia Del Portillo

Chapter 4 **Response of Mycobacterial Species to an Acidic Environment 89** 

Mario Alberto Flores-Valdez,

Jeannette Barba and Angel H. Alvarez

Niladri Ganguly and Pawan Sharma

Chapter 7 *Mycobacterium tuberculosis* **Transcriptome** 

Beatrice Saviola

Chapter 3 **IS***6110* **the Double-Edged Passenger 59** 

Isabel Otal and María Jesús García
