M. tuberculosis strain Correlation coefficient Mycolic acid concentration (μM) Mycolic acid quantity (μg) Wild type H37Rv 0.985, 0.997 0.35±0.07 2.3±0.5 mce1 operon mutant 0.996, 0.997 3.75±0.77 24±5 mce1 operon complemented strain 0.998, 0.993 0.75±0.35 4.9±2.3

Table 1: Quantitative analysis of mycolic acids extracted from approximately 1010 wild type, mce1 operon mutant, and complemented M. tuberculosis H37Rv bacilli. Data presented here reflect the average of two independent experiments. Correlation coefficients from two different experiments are shown.