Prospecting environmental mycobacteria: combined molecular approaches reveal unprecedented diversity

Background: Environmental mycobacteria (EM) include species commonly found in various terrestrial and aquatic environments, encompassing animal and human pathogens in addition to saprophytes. Approximately 150 EM species can be separated into fast and slow growers based on sequence and copy number differences of their 16S rRNA genes. Cultivation methods are not appropriate for diversity studies; few studies have investigated EM diversity in soil despite their importance as potential reservoirs of pathogens and their hypothesized role in masking or blocking M. bovis BCG vaccine. Methods: We report here the development, optimization and validation of molecular assays targeting the 16S rRNA gene to assess diversity and prevalence of fast and slow growing EM in representative soils from semi tropical and temperate areas. New primer sets were designed also to target uniquely slow growing mycobacteria and used with PCR-DGGE, tag-encoded Titanium amplicon pyrosequencing and quantitative PCR. Results: PCR-DGGE and pyrosequencing provided a consensus of EM diversity; for example, a high abundance of pyrosequencing reads and DGGE bands corresponded to M. moriokaense, M. colombiense and M. riyadhense. As expected pyrosequencing provided more comprehensive information; additional prevalent species included M. chlorophenolicum, M. neglectum, M. gordonae, M. aemonae. Prevalence of the total Mycobacterium genus in the soil samples ranged from 2.3×107 to 2.7×108 gene targets g−1; slow growers prevalence from 2.9×105 to 1.2×107 cells g−1. Conclusions: This combined molecular approach enabled an unprecedented qualitative and quantitative assessment of EM across soil samples. Good concordance was found between methods and the bioinformatics analysis was validated by random resampling. Sequences from most pathogenic groups associated with slow growth were identified in extenso in all soils tested with a specific assay, allowing to unmask them from the Mycobacterium whole genus, in which, as minority members, they would have remained undetected

Isolation and direct complete nucleotide determination of entire genes. Characterization of a gene coding for 16S ribosomal RNA.

Using a set of synthetic oligonucleotides homologous to broadly conserved sequences in-vitro amplification via the polymerase chain reaction followed by direct sequencing results in almost complete nucleotide determination of a gene coding for 16S ribosomal RNA. As a model system the nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene of M.kansasii was determined and found to be 98.7% homologous to that of M.bovis BCG. This is the first report on a contiguous sequence information of an entire amplified gene spanning 1.5 kb without any subcloning procedures

EKOP-Rasenmaeher: Entwicklung eines entsorgungsfreundlichen Rasenmaehers und Bedingungen fuer ein Logistiksystem zur Ruecknahme und Verwertung. Bd. 1 Forschungsergebnisse. Endbericht

Available from TIB Hannover: RR 3521(21,1)+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

EKOP-Rasenmaeher: Entwicklung eines entsorgungsfreundlichen Rasenmaehers und Bedingungen fuer ein Logistiksystem zur Ruecknahme und Verwertung. Bd. 2 Anhang. Endbericht

Available from TIB Hannover: RR 3521(21,2)+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Identification of Mycobacterium Species by Multiple-Fluorescence PCR–Single-Strand Conformation Polymorphism Analysis of the 16S rRNA Gene

Identification of mycobacteria to the species level by growth-based methodologies is a process that has been fraught with difficulties due to the long generation times of mycobacteria. There is an increasing incidence of unusual nontuberculous mycobacterial infections, especially in patients with concomitant immunocompromised states, which has led to the discovery of new mycobacterial species and the recognition of the pathogenicity of organisms that were once considered nonpathogens. Therefore, there is a need for rapid and sensitive techniques that can accurately identify all mycobacterial species. Multiple-fluorescence-based PCR and subsequent single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis (MF-PCR-SSCP) of four variable regions of the 16S rRNA gene were used to identify species-specific patterns for 30 of the most common mycobacterial human pathogens and environmental isolates. The species-specific SSCP patterns generated were then entered into a database by using BioNumerics, version 1.5, software with a pattern-recognition capability, among its multiple uses. Patient specimens previously identified by 16S rRNA gene sequencing were subsequently tested by this method and were identified by comparing their patterns with those in the reference database. Fourteen species whose SSCP patterns were included in the database were correctly identified. Five other test organisms were correctly identified as unique species or were identified by their closest relative, as they were not in the database. We propose that MF-PCR-SSCP offers a rapid, specific, and relatively inexpensive identification tool for the differentiation of mycobacterial species