Fig. 1: ADSCs support better H37Rv survival and high drug tolerance.

a Representative confocal images of GFP-H37Rv-infected ADSCs at 0 h, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th days post infection (dpi), Scale bars, 20 µm. b MFI of GFP-H37Rv/cell across above mentioned time points is represented in bar graph as mean ± SD, n = 3 independent experiments, each representing five fields consisting of 25–100 cells. c Growth kinetics of H37Rv within ADSCs across 12 dpi. d Growth kinetics of H37Rv within human MDMs across 7 days post infection and (e) in THP-1 macrophages across 3 days. f Growth kinetics of BCG within ADSCs and THP-1 macrophages (g) across 0, 1, 2, and 3 dpi. h H37Rv-infected ADSCs were treated with doses of isoniazid (INH), and rifampicin (RIF) for 24 h prior to 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th dpi, and were plated for CFU enumeration. n = 3 donors, ****p < 0.0001. i Percent drug-tolerant bacterial population to INH (1 µg/ml) within ADSCs (blue) on 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th days and within MDMs (purple) on 3rd, 5th, and 7th dpi, respectively (see Methods). n = 3 donors (ADSC), 4 donors (MDM). j Percent drug-tolerant bacterial population to RIF (0.5 µg/ml) within ADSCs (blue) on 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th days and within MDMs (purple) on 3rd, 5th, and 7th dpi, respectively. n = 3 donors (ADSC), 4 donors (MDM). k Line histogram of surface and intracellular (I.C.) staining of ABCC1/MRP-1 and ABCG2/BCRP in uninfected and in H37Rv-infected ADSCs, 6 dpi. Numbers represent MFI of individual colored histogram. l Percent INH (1 µg/ml) tolerant bacterial population in ADSCs after knocking down ABCC1 (200 nM siRNA) or ABCG2 (200 nM siRNA) alone or in combination, in H37Rv-infected ADSCs, n = 4 independent experiments. m H37Rv CFU from 6th day infected ADSCs after siRNA mediated knockdown of ABCC1 and ABCG2 for 48 h prior to the time point. n = 4 independent experiments. All data were analyzed by two-tailed unpaired Student’s t test and represented as mean ± SD. Source data are included in the source data file.