Nontuberculous mycobacteria are human pathogens with increasing incidence and prevalence worldwide. Mycobacterium shimoidei is a rare cause of pulmonary disease, with only 15 cases previously reported. This series documents an additional 23 cases of M. shimoidei from Queensland, Australia, and highlights the pathogenicity and clinical role of this species.

Mycobacterium fortuitum is a member of the rapidly growing nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). It is ubiquitous in water and soil habitats, including hospital environments. M. fortuitum is increasingly recognized as an opportunistic nosocomial pathogen causing disseminated infection. Here we report the genome sequence of M. fortuitum subsp. fortuitum type strain DSM46621.

3 Rina de Zwaan, Jakko van Ingen, and Dick van Soolingen 4 5 National Mycobacteria Reference Laboratory, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment 6 (RIVM), Bilthoven, the Netherlands 7 Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands 8 9 10 #Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. D. van Soolingen, [email protected] 11 12 13 Runni...

Mycolactones are a family of highly related macrocyclic polyketides that exhibit immunosuppressive and cytotoxic properties. First discovered in 1999, they are the primary virulence factors produced by the environmental human pathogen Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of Buruli ulcer, and by some closely-related aquatic mycobacteria that cause disease in fish and frogs. Mycolactones a...

We wish to draw attention to a very characteristic but little known syndrome. An elderly woman presented with a 'sausage finger', rheumatological jargon used to describe diffuse swelling of the digit. This proved to be a proliferative tenosynovitis caused by an atypical mycobacterium, Mycobacterium terrae, or the radish bacillus.

Generally speaking the greater the number of Mycobacteria lepra: there in the system, the greater is the tendency to leprous reaction. Reaction is rarely seen in the early case of nerve leprosy, but the passage from the A1 stage to the B1 stage may be marked by leprous reaction. During the B stages of skin leprosy, reaction is much more commonly seen, but as the A2 stage is approached, reaction...

The objective of the current study was to compare two rapid methods, the BBL Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT TM) and Biotec FASTPlaque TB TM (FPTB) assays, with the conventional Löwenstein-Jensen (LJ) media assay to diagnose mycobacterial infections from paucibacillary clinical specimens. For evaluation of the clinical utility of the BBL MGIT TM and FPTB assays, respiratory tract speci...

Lung disease caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) is an emerging infectious disease of global significance. Epidemiologic studies have shown the Hawaiian Islands have the highest prevalence of NTM lung infections in the United States. However, potential environmental reservoirs and species diversity have not been characterized. In this cross-sectional study, we describe molecular and phy...