The nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are typically environmental organisms residing in soil and water. Although generally of low pathogenicity to humans, NTM can cause a wide array of clinical diseases; pulmonary disease is most frequent, followed by lymphadenitis in children, skin disease by M. marinum (particularly in fish tank fanciers), and other extrapulmonary or disseminated infections i...

Two strains of fastidious mycobacteria were isolated from two patients with AIDS and clinical disease suggestive of Mycobacterium avium complex infection. Acid-fast bacilli were isolated from blood and bone marrow of both patients in BACTEC 12B and/or 13A media. The acid-fast bacilli failed to grow on subculture to routine Löwenstein-Jensen medium containing pyruvate and egg yolk agar. After se...

BACKGROUND Nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infections cause morbidity worldwide. They are difficult to diagnose in resource-limited regions, and most patients receive empiric treatment for tuberculosis (TB). Our objective here is to evaluate the potential impact of NTM diseases among patients treated presumptively for tuberculosis in Mali. METHODS We re-evaluated sputum specimens among pat...

A co-operative taxonomic study has been performed on slowly growing photochromogenic mycobacteria (Runyon Group I) and closely related organisms. Phenetic data on 54 strains, studied in seven laboratories, were collected and analysed by numerical taxonomic methods. Immunological properties and phage susceptibility patterns were analysed independently to establish correlation with numerical clas...

Identification of tuberculous and nontuberculous mycobacteria by biochemical methods is a long-term process that takes up to 8 weeks for completion and requires expertise to interpret the results. In order to detect and differentiate the major pathogenic mycobacterial species, we developed genus-specific primers that amplify the dnaJ gene from the broad spectrum of mycobacterial species and det...

LETTERS isolation, as required by microbiological criteria, was not possible because a second sputum sample was unavailable. M. sherrisii is a relatively new species (6), closely related to M. simiae. Although most of the rare M. sherrisiiTechapp1.pdf) were diagnosed in Europe or the United States, about half of the strains were isolated from patients in Africa. Because M. sherrisii infection p...

BACKGROUND Rapid identification of the etiological agent in bloodstream infections is of vital importance for the early administration of the most appropriate antibiotic therapy. Molecular methods may offer an advantage to current culture-based microbiological diagnosis. The goal of this study was to evaluate the performance of IRIDICA, a platform based on universal genetic amplification follow...

There are at least two approaches to antileprosy vaccines : One is the use of Mycobacterium leprae derived from M. leprae-infected armadillos (1) and the other is the use of mycobacteria other than M. leprae, which share the antigenic determinants with M. leprae such as M. nonchromogenicum (2), M. vaccae (2), M. simiae (3), M. tuberculosis H37Ra (3), and M, bovis BCG (3). Shepard et al. (3) rep...