Factors that can interfere with the successful treatment of Mycobacterium avium lung infection have been inadequately studied. To identify a potent predictor of therapeutic responses of M. avium lung infection, we analyzed variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) at 16 minisatellite loci of M. avium clinical isolates. Associations between the VNTR profiling data and a therapeutic response were eva...

The possibility that the strains included within the Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), but not belonging either to M. avium or to Mycobacterium intracellulare, may be members of undescribed taxa, has already been questioned by several taxonomists. A very homogeneous cluster of 12 strains characterized by identical nucleotide sequences both in the 16S rDNA and in the 16S-23S internal transcribe...

Mycobacterium avium causes disseminated infection in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogen associated with the deaths of millions of people worldwide annually. Effective therapeutic regimens exist that are limited by the emergence of drug resistance and the inability of antibiotics to kill dormant organisms. The present study describes a sys...

Mycobacterium avium is an environmental organism and opportunistic pathogen with inherent resistance to drugs, environmental stresses, and the host immune response. To adapt to these disparate conditions, M. avium must control its transcriptional response to environmental cues. M. avium forms biofilms in various environmental settings, including drinking water pipes and potable water reservoirs...

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...

A lthough distinct, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium both infect and survive in host macrophages. M. tuberculosis is more virulent, specifically adapted to humans, and grows poorly outside of the host. In contrast, M. avium can survive in the environment and also can infect several different host species in addition to humans, including birds, pigs, dogs, and monkeys. M. tuber...

The bactericidal activities of four injectable antituberculosis drugs, streptomycin, amikacin, kanamycin, and capreomycin, against Mycobacterium avium and M. tuberculosis were tested. All four drugs were highly bactericidal against M. tuberculosis, with low MBC/MIC ratios and MBCs significantly lower than the maximum achievalbe concentrations in serum (Cmax). In contrast, all four drugs had ver...

The groES gene of Mycobacterium avium strain 485 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli and the recombinant GroES protein was purified by affinity chromatography. The GroES preparation showed high purity by electrophoresis and immunoblotting. Immuno-electron microscopy showed that GroES was located both in the cytoplasm and on the surface of the mycobacterial cells and thus is readily ava...

OBJECTIVES Therapy of AIDS patients infected with Mycobacterium avium is problematic due to its intrinsic resistance to antibiotics. We have characterized the efflux pump activity of M. avium wild-type strain through an automated fluorometric method and correlated it with intrinsic resistance to antibiotics. METHODS M. avium ATCC 25291(T) and Mycobacterium smegmatis mc(2)155 were evaluated fo...

A rapid and quantitative assay for the disinfection of the water-borne pathogen, Mycobacterium avium, was developed using firefly luciferase as a reporter gene. There was a correlation between the quantity of light produced and the number of colony-forming units. In chlorine-disinfection studies of a luciferase-carrying derivative of M. avium, there was a strong correlation (r2=0.96) between co...