It seems generally agreed upon that M. tuberculosis is a difficult bacterium with which to work. With a growth period of about one month before a single colony becomes visible on a culture plate, interest in tuberculosis waned as the incidences of the disease diminished in Europe and North America. Development of new experimental techniques, however, has renewed interest in the organism. As technological advancements opened new avenues of research, hopes for understanding and treating the disease rose. In particular, the development of molecular genetics tools has brought new light to M. tuberculosis .
New information regarding the tuberculosis genome suggests a great potential for treatments.
Genetically speaking, Mycobacterium tuberculosis is unusual in several aspects, making it a difficult organism to study. Efforts are currently underway to map the M. tuberculosis genome but the size of the genome has already been determined. An estimation of 3.8 million base pairs was made by E. coli association kinetics. Michael Weiden, however, criticizes this analysis, stating that although M. tuberculosis has the same reassociation kinetics as E. coli, a correction must be made for the difference in CG content between the species. Unlike many other bacteria, the M. tuberculosis genome is not supplemented by plasmids.