The initial host response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis is driven by innate immunity. For this study, we examined the ability of 18 recent clinical isolates and 5 reference strains to survive and replicate in the context of host innate immunity by using whole blood culture. Six healthy tuberculin-negative volunteers served as subjects. H 37 Ra showed the least capacity to replicate of any of the strains tested, decreasing in viability 1.3 log CFU during 72 h of whole blood culture, whereas H 37 Rv increased 0.32 log. Clinical isolates varied greatly in their ability to replicate in blood cells, ranging from ؊0.4 to ؉0.8 log (P < 0.001). Four showed significantly more growth than H 37 Rv, and one showed significantly reduced growth. Host mechanisms for restricting intracellular mycobacterial growth were more effective during the first 24 h of whole blood culture than during the 24-to 72-h period. Certain mycobacterial isolates appeared preferentially able to withstand host defenses during each of these intervals. Although there was relatively more homogeneity among subjects than among strains, one of the six subjects showed a reduced capacity to restrict intracellular mycobacterial growth due to a defect expressed during the first 24 h of culture. Our findings indicate substantial variability in the capacity of clinical tuberculosis isolates to replicate in host cells in the face of innate host immunity.The early events following inhalation by an immunocompetent, mycobacterium-naïve host of droplet nuclei containing viable Mycobacterium tuberculosis are driven by the innate immune system. The resulting influx of neutrophils, macrophages, NK cells, and other cells to the site of infection serves as a stimulus for granuloma formation and acts directly to limit the extent of mycobacterial replication at this early stage of infection. It has been suggested that the efficiency of these early innate responses may help determine whether a latent infection is established and whether that infection ultimately will progress to active disease.Through evolutionary selection, pathogenic mycobacteria have acquired means to evade specific host immune effector mechanisms, presumably including those of the innate response. The propensity of certain M. tuberculosis isolates to cause outbreaks, for example, has been linked to increased virulence in macrophages or mice in association with altered host cytokine expression profiles (2,3,6,8,12). However, even these virulent outbreak-associated isolates cause disease in only a small proportion of infected individuals. Our understanding of the interplay of biologic and genetic diversity in the host and in the mycobacterium is incomplete, in part because current models to examine the early events in mycobacterial pathogenesis have not been well suited to field or epidemiologic human studies.For the present study, we assessed the capacity of mycobacterial strains to survive phagocytosis and replicate in whole blood cultures. This model permits the involvement of neutrophils, as well as mo...