Systemic and comparative biology of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex: effects of genetic variability on bacterial phenotype

Tuberculosis (TB), the second leading cause of human mortality from infectious agents in the world, is caused by species of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), a zoonotic group of 12 genetically similar bacteria whose members of greatest interest to human health include: M tuberculosis (main cause of the disease), M. africanum 1 and 2, M. canettii, M. bovis and M. caprae. It is a group of clonal evolution that promotes genetic diversity based on deletions and nucleotide mutations, resulting in variations in phenotype and tropism by hosts.Despite the great genetic similarity shared between MTBC, it is still unknown how the dynamics of infection and variation of virulence occur between different hosts. Thus, this work proposes to compare the dynamics of infection of these pathogens in its target cell, the human macrophage, while simultaneously analyzing transcriptomics data that can provide evidence about the effect of genetic variations on MTBC phenotypes.