Project description:Mycobacterium avium is a significant opportunistic intracellular pathogen in humans, pigs and birds. Human and porcine infection with M. avium is mainly due to M. avium subsp. hominissuis, whereas birds are typically infected with M. avium subsp. avium. Reasons for this distribution of subspecies between the hosts are uncertain, but they might be due to differences in exposure or to different abilities to infect the respective hosts. We wanted to assay how isolates of the two subspecies interact with a human host in a macrophage model to gain more knowledge on possible differences in virulence. This study compares clinical isolates of M. avium with regards to their ability to invade and replicate intracellularly in human monocytes/macrophages and to the gene expression triggered in these cells upon infection. Further focus in the description of protocols is limited to the parts of the study that regards the expression analysis.
