Figure 7. Increased expression of Hb complex genes is associated with increased in vitro mycobacterial growth.

Individuals were stratified by mycobacterial growth (low and high or low, mid and high Δ log₁₀ CFU) from two different studies of (a) whole blood from 21 healthy adults from the UK/Asia in an M.tb H37Rv MGIT assay and (b) PBMC from 130 South African infants in a BCG Pasteur MGIT assay. Gene expression levels were taken from unstimulated samples and the z-score averaged across the 11 gene members of the GO category ‘haemoglobin complex’. The box represents the upper and lower quartiles and the line the median value. The whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values excluding outliers. A Mann-Whitney U test was performed between groups where *represents a p-value of <0.05.