Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is the pathogen of tuberculosis, a global epidemic and chronic infectious disease. Its pathogenic mechanism and drug resistance are closely related to its specific cell wall components, especially lipids, such as lipoarabinomannans, trehalose-6, 6’-dimycolates, phenolic glycolipids and other glycolipids. It is of great value to study the lipids of M. tuberculosis cell wall for the diagnosis and prevention of tuberculosis. In order to provide a reference for the related basic research of M. tuberculosis, this review summarized the recent progress on the bioactivity of various lipids of M. tuberculosis cell wall.