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Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) continues to plague humanity because of significant gaps in our understanding of MTB infection, including the nature of a protective versus pathological host response, why antimicrobial cure is so difficult, and the ineffectiveness of vaccination. The development of a zebrafish model, utilizing infection with the natural fish pathogen Mycobacterium marinum (Mm),...

Mycobacterium pseudoshottsii is a slowly growing photochromogenic mycobacterium and fish pathogen isolated from wild marine fishes. M. pseudoshottsii closely resembles M. marinum, which is a human and animal pathogen. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of M. pseudoshottsii strain JCM15466, originally isolated from striped bass, Morone saxatilis.

Although tuberculous granulomas, which are composed of infected macrophages and other immune cells, have long been considered impermeable structures, recent studies have shown that superinfecting Mycobacterium marinum traffic rapidly to established fish and frog granulomas by host-mediated and Mycobacterium-directed mechanisms. The present study shows that superinfecting Mycobacterium tuberculo...

Mycobacterium marinum causes a systemic tuberculosis-like disease in fish and skin infections in humans that can spread to deeper structures, resulting in tenosynovitis, arthritis, and osteomyelitis. However, little information is available concerning (i) the intraspecific genetic diversity of M. marinum isolated from humans and animals; (ii) M. marinum genotype circulation in the different eco...

ichthyozoonotic mycobacterium spp. poses health risks both to fish and humans. in this study, the presence of ichthyozoonotic mycobacterium spp. was investigated in red mullet (mullus barbatus barbatus) and surmullet (mullus surmuletus), widely caught species in the mediterranean and the aegean sea. a total of 208 fish samples, provided from fishermen of mersin province (turkey) were studied. u...

Previous studies of the 16S rRNA genes from Mycobacterium ulcerans and Mycobacterium marinum have suggested a very close genetic relationship between these species (99.6% identity). However, these organisms are phenotypically distinct and cause diseases with very different pathologies. To investigate this apparent paradox, we compared 3,306 nucleotides from the partial sequences of eight housek...

A novel category of variable tandem repeats (VNTR) called mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRUs) has been identified for Mycobacterium ulcerans (n = 39), M. marinum (n = 27), and one related organism. Fifteen MIRU loci were identified in the genome of M. marinum and were used to genotype M. ulcerans, M. marinum, and an M. marinum-like organism that is considered a possible missing ...

We have used RNASeq and qRT-PCR to study mRNA levels for all σ-factors in different Mycobacterium marinum strains under various growth and stress conditions. We also studied their levels in M. marinum from infected fish and mosquito larvae. The annotated σ-factors were expressed and transcripts varied in relation to growth and stress conditions. Some were highly abundant such as sigA, sigB, sig...

Cord formation is a characteristic property of the cultured Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex species. We describe a case of Mycobacterium marinum demonstrating robust cord formation. Nontuberculous mycobacteria can form true cords in broth culture but do so rarely, despite the fact that many species contain the cell wall glycolipid that mediates cord formation.