Fig. 5. Mtb infection impacts the expression of several glycosyltransferase-encoding genes in humans.
a Neutrophils are the main cells expressing sLex in human peripheral blood. Vein blood was collected and stained for CD3, CD14, CD16, CD19 and sLex by flow cytometry. Data shown represent one donor out of 25 analysed. b Volcano plots displaying the comparisons between Active TB vs Control, Active TB vs Latent TB and Latent TB vs Control regarding the differential expression of annotated coding genes of glycosyltransferases (obtained from Glyco-Enzyme Repository) on the Berry London, Berry Leicester (progressor) and Berry South Africa datasets.26 Labelled genes encode for glycosyltransferases associated with the sLex pathway. Dot color indicates if the corresponding gene is upregulated (red, log-fold-change >1 and p-value < 0.05), downregulated (blue, log-fold-change < -1 and p-value < 0.05), significant (black, log-fold-change >−1 to <1 and p-value < 0.05) and not significant (grey). c Lung sections of TB patients who underwent therapeutic surgery were stained for sLex as above. Black and white arrowheads point to positive epithelial or immune cells, respectively. Scale bars correspond to 100 µm.