Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage influences innate immune response and virulence and is associated with distinct cell envelope lipid profiles.

The six major genetic lineages of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are strongly associated with specific geographical regions, but their relevance to bacterial virulence and the clinical consequences of infection are unclear. Previously, we found that in Vietnam, East Asian/Beijing and Indo-Oceanic strains were significantly more likely to cause disseminated tuberculosis with meningitis than those from the Euro-American lineage. To investigate this observation we characterised 7 East Asian/Beijing, 5 Indo-Oceanic and 6 Euro-American Vietnamese strains in bone-marrow-derived macrophages, dendritic cells and mice.