Genotypic changes in DNA fingerprinting patterns of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains from HIV-positive persons in Sardinia

Performance of QuantiFERON-TB testing in a tuberculosis outbreak at a primary school

This study compared the effectiveness of the QuantiFERON-TB Gold (QFT) assay with the Mantoux tuberculin skin test to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in 29 children during a school outbreak of tuberculosis. Of the 21 children with M. tuberculosis infection, 11 had a radiograph suggestive of the infection. The QFT assay was positive in all 21 of the children, and the Mantoux test was negative at first testing in 2 children (1 of whom was the sentinel case). The findings demonstrate that the QFT test is extremely useful in accurately identifying infected and uninfected children, permitting rapid intervention.

Mycobacterium marinum, a further infectious agent associated with sarcoidosis: the polyetiology hypothesis

A 39-y-old male had a diagnosis of sarcoidosis and corticosteroid therapy was started. Surprisingly, following his discharge from hospital, Mycobacterium marinum was isolated in 1 of 3 sputum samples taken 7 weeks earlier on admission. After this, Mycobacterium marinum-DNA was identified in the stored lung biopsies by the PCR-RFLP of the hsp65 gene.

Identification of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in biopsy specimens from patients with Crohn's disease identified by in situ hybridization

Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract of unknown etiology. We report on the presence of cell wall-deficient Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in 35 of 48 paraffin-embedded tissue specimens from 33 patients with Crohn's disease by in situ hybridization with IS900 as a probe.

Different strategies for molecular differentiation of Mycobacterium bovis strains isolated in Sardinia, Italy

Different genetic markers were used to analyze 22 Mycobacterium bovis strains isolated from cattle in Sardinia and one human isolate. IS6110 DNA fingerprinting differentiated the strains into six patterns, whereas with enterobacterial repetitive consensus sequence primers produced seven clusters. PCR ribotyping followed by digestion with HaeIII and PvuII produced five and seven patterns, respectively. PCR with the (GTG)5 oligonucleotide primer showed the best discriminatory power, generating eight clusters among the strains analyzed.