TKT and bacterial infectious disease: Transcriptome profiling data also indicated that abundance of TKT RNA was increased in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) during bacterial infections, such as by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Escherichia coli, and Streptococcus pneumoniae [iFigure/GSE6269] [31], as illustrated in the flow chart (Fig 1A).