Fig. 4. Intracellular viability of M. shigaense, M. triplex, and M. tuberculosis.

Macrophages were infected with bacteria cultured on L–J medium. The intracellular bacteria were harvested from the macrophages at 6 h, 24 h, 48 h post infection and plated on L–J medium. The colony forming units were counted and plotted as Log₁₀CFU counts. M. shigaense and M. triplex shared a similar trend of increase in Log₁₀CFU from 6 h to 24 h post infection and a decrease from 24 h to 48 h post-infection, whereas M. tuberculosis underwent slow growth from 6 h to 48 h post-infection