We were greatly impressed by the Joint Tuberculosis Committee guidelines on the management of opportunist mycobacterial infections. We do, however, wonder why the word “opportunist” has been used to describe the mycobacteria, other than the M tuberculosis complex, that cause human disease. All mycobacteria causing disease, even the M tuberculosis complex, are opportunists. Thus, the latter are ...

Mycobacteria are intracellular pathogens that can survive within macrophage phagosomes, thereby evading host defense strategies by largely unknown mechanisms. We have identified a WD repeat host protein that was recruited to and actively retained on phagosomes by living, but not dead, mycobacteria. This protein, termed TACO, represents a component of the phagosome coat that is normally released...

We were greatly impressed by the Joint Tuberculosis Committee guidelines on the management of opportunist mycobacterial infections. We do, however, wonder why the word “opportunist” has been used to describe the mycobacteria, other than the M tuberculosis complex, that cause human disease. All mycobacteria causing disease, even the M tuberculosis complex, are opportunists. Thus, the latter are ...

12 Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are in the same family as the organisms that cause tuberculosis and leprosy, but unlike those organisms, NTM are widely dispersed in our environment, vary greatly in their ability to cause disease, and are not spread from person to person. There are about 140 different species of mycobacteria. Mycobacteria not closely related to tuberculosis or leprosy are c...

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) causing human infectious disease have become increasingly common. Rapid and accurate identification to the species level is, therefore, critical. The Speed-Oligo Mycobacteria assay is an oligochromatographic method that was made available recently for the identification and differentiation of mycobacteria. The present study aimed to evaluate the performance of ...

The role of antigens shared between Mycobacteria in in-vivo cross-reactive immune responses in host animals, have been reported to be responsible for reduced BCG vaccination efficacy as well reduced specificity of routine immunological diagnostic tests. This presents with significant disease control challenges in humans and animals. The present review highlights the results of previous studies ...

Novel environmental air and water mycobacteria sampling and analytical methods are needed to circumvent difficulties associated with the use of culture-based methodologies. To implement this objective, a commercial, clinical, genus DNA amplification method utilizing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was interfaced with novel air sampling strategies in the laboratory. Two types of air samplers...

It is difficult to distinguish between clinically significant slowly-growing, non-pigmented mycobacteria, notably to separate M. aviumand M. intracellulare from one another and from M. scrofulaceum strains. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which 16S rRNA sequencing could be used to highlight the taxonomic relationships of the mycobacterial strains, which are difficult to ...

Background: Diabetes is an important metabolic disease with myriad manifestations and complications, affecting many people. Cutaneous infections impact numerous diabetic patients. Among different bacterial infections in diabetic patients, the infections caused by mycobacteria other than Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MOTT) eventuate in complications owing to the paucity of accurate detection...