Transcriptional profiling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis replicating in the human type II alveolar epithelial cell line, A549

Alveolar epithelial cells outnumber alveolar macrophages by ~500 fold and increasing evidence suggests Mycobacterium tuberculosis may replicate dramatically in these cells during the initial weeks of infecting the lung [1,2]. Here, we report in experimental detail the transcriptional profiling of Mycobacterium tuberculosis replicating at 72 hr post-infection in the human type II alveolar epithelial cell line, A549, as compared to Mycobacterium tuberculosis growing logarithmically in laboratory broth culture [2]. All resulting transcriptional profiling data was deposited to the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database under the accession number GSE58466.