Transcriptional profiling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv in whole blood from HIV- and HIV+ individuals

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tb), the cause of tuberculosis (TB), utilizes the blood circulation to spread systemically and establish infection, and the risk of developing active TB (pulmonary and extrapulmonary) is significantly increased in individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In this work, we have used DNA microarray analysis to investigate the transcriptome of M. tb replicating in human whole blood from both HIV-negative and HIV-positive donors compared to M. tb grown in Middlebrook 7H9 broth media in order to identify M. tb adaptations to this host environment as well as M. tb mechanisms/factors contributing to increased active and disseminated TB during M. tb/HIV co-infection. We compared the global gene expression of M. tb H37Rv replicating in whole blood from 6 HIV- and 6 HIV+ individulas at 96 hr to M. tb grown to log phase in Middlebrook 7H9 media.