By mediating the attachment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to alveolar macrophages and promoting the phagocytosis of these bacteria, SP-A is important in the pathogenesis of tuberculosis [18] [19] [20] [21] . SP-A also functionally interacts with staphylococci [22, 23] Moreover, SP-A is involved in the complex pulmonary network of cytokines as a central player, for example interacting with TNF-alpha and several interleukins [31, 12, 14] .