Deep CyTOF immune profiles of ex vivo granulomatous responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis differ with European and African geographical origin

PBMCs from healthy African donors show greater ex vivo control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth than PBMCs from European donors, with CyTOF revealing origin-specific granuloma profiles.

• Why it matters: TB burden varies by region, but how immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis differ across human populations is not well defined, limiting vaccine and host-directed design.
• What they did: The study compared ex vivo granulomatous responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis using high-dimensional single-cell CyTOF profiling, linking monocyte and T-cell phenotypes to bacterial growth or control.
• The result: European monocytes showed a pro-inflammatory phenotype linked to Mycobacterium tuberculosis growth, while African samples were enriched for activated cytotoxic T cells linked to Mtb control, and African monocytes had reduced inflammatory responses after microbial stimulation.

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