Figure 1.

Contribution of selected mannoproteins to M. tuberculosis growth in vitro and in vivo. (A) Growth of WT M. tuberculosis and mutants in liquid medium. Mycobacterial strains were inoculated at 10⁶cfu/ml. Absorbance at 600 nm was followed over time for the various cultures. (B) Growth of WT M. tuberculosis and mutants on 7H11 Petri plates. Serial dilutions of adjusted liquid cultures of the various mutants were spotted on solid medium and incubated at 37 °C. (C) Growth of tagged-WT M. tuberculosis and tagged-mutants in BALB/c mice. Mice (5 for each time points) were infected with 6.10² cfu of a population containing similar concentration of each strains. At 1, 14 or 28 days post-infection, the bacterial population was recovered from the lung of the infected mice and grown for 7 days in liquid medium. Total DNA was extracted and the quantity of each mutant evaluated by qPCR using primers specific for the tags. The amount of each mutant relative to the inoculum is plotted.