Microbiology of M. Tuberculosis
Mycobacterium
Tuberculosis (MTB) is the main causative organism of the microbial disease Tuberculosis
(TB) in humans. MTB is in the family of Mycobacteriaceae and belongs to the genus of Actinobacteria. Mycobacterium has existed since ancient
times and has even been found in the remains of Egyptians from 2400 BCE. These microbes are non-motile slow-growing obligate aerobes that favor reproduction in the lungs because of the oxygen rich atmosphere. Mycobacterium are rod-shaped bacillus. MTB is also known as "acid-fast bacilli. They are neither gram-positive nor gram-negative and are resistant to staining because their cells clump together as they are hydrophobic. Although there is not a outer membrane of the Mycobacterium cell envelope, MTB does have an external permeable barrier due to the considerable sized peptidoglycan-arabinogalactan-mycolic acid wall.