Non-tuberculous mycobacteria are opportunist pathogens increasingly recognised as a cause of pulmonary and extrapulmonary disease. Treatment is complicated, prolonged and potentially toxic, and due to a limited evidence base, potentially contentious and idiosyncratic. This is a retrospective review of non-tuberculous mycobacteria cases in the NHS Borders Health Board between 1992 and 2010. We c...

Infections caused by non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) is increasing wordwide. Due to the difference in treatment of NTM infections and tuberculosis, rapid species identification of mycobacterial clinical isolates is necessary for the effective management of mycobacterial diseases treatment and their control strategy. In this study, a cost-effective technique, real-time PCR coupled with high-r...

Mycobacterium kansasii is a nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) pathogen, frequently isolated from clinical samples and responsible for a large part of NTM infections in the human population. Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 12 M. kansasii strains isolated from clinical and host-associated sources from the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland.

The E3 ubiquitin ligase NEDD4 has been intensively studied in processes involved in viral infections, such as virus budding. However, little is known about its functions in bacterial infections. Our investigations into the role of NEDD4 in intracellular bacterial infections demonstrate that Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Listeria monocytogenes, but not Mycobacterium bovis BCG, replicate more ef...

Meningitis in individuals living with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is most frequently infectious in origin and usually due to opportunistic infections. The most common pathogens are Cryptococcus neoformans and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Treponema pallidum causes neurosyphilis and can complicate HIV infections at any time after the initial infection. Simultaneous infections of the ...

INTRODUCTION Mycobacterium abscessus is a rapidly growing mycobacterium usually causing skin and soft tissue infections in immunocompetent patients following contaminated traumatic or surgical wounds or contaminated injected medications. Disseminated infections and pulmonary infections are usually reported in immunocompromised hosts. CASE PRESENTATION We describe a 54-year-old Caucasian woman...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections are well recognised complications of HIV infection and surveillance is thus required. METHODS All mycobacteria isolated from HIV positive subjects and referred to the Public Health Laboratory Service South East Regional Tuberculosis Centre (SERTC) from the first such case in 1984 until the end of 1992 were reviewed. RESULTS A total ...