Detection of Mycolic Acid Implying the Presence of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis H37Rv in Host

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Tuberculosis is a widespread infectious disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year. The bacterium, responsible for causing tuberculosis is Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv (Mtb) which belongs to Mycobacteriaceace family. It is a gram positive bacteria and highly aerobic in nature which enters the host by the means of inhalation. Several tests are performed for the diagnosis of tuberculosis such as chest X-rays, culture, tuberculin skin test, interferon gamma release assays and histopathology. These techniques are expensive as well as take a lot of time in confirming the presence of bacteria. A cost and time effective way to diagnose the disease could be with the help of lipids present in the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The cell wall skeleton is chemically composed of three covalently linked components: peptidoglycan, arabinogalactan and mycolic acids. All these components can be exposed by rupturing the cell wall by suitable means. After their exposure mycolic acids can be extracted. Mtb contains three types of mycolic acids i.e. alpha, methoxy and keto mycolic acids. These lipids consist of several functional groups which are expected to give positive result for the organic qualitative analysis. These functional groups are alcohols, carboxylic acids, ketone and ether. Each functional group has different tests which one can perform in order to confirm its presence. This review is describing several chemical tests and these can be done by using mycolic acid as sample. The chemical reactions can impart colour, show effervescence or can show precipitation for identification which in turn will confirm the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the patient.