Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Sep;72(9):5974-81.
doi: 10.1128/AEM.03075-05.

Survival of environmental mycobacteria in Acanthamoeba polyphaga

Toïdi Adékambi  1 , Skandar Ben Salah, Mohamed Khlif, Didier Raoult, Michel Drancourt
Affiliations

Survival of environmental mycobacteria in Acanthamoeba polyphaga

Toïdi Adékambi et al. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2006 Sep.

Expression of concern in

Abstract

Free-living amoebae in water are hosts to many bacterial species living in such an environment. Such an association enables bacteria to select virulence factors and survive in adverse conditions. Waterborne mycobacteria (WBM) are important sources of community- and hospital-acquired outbreaks of nontuberculosis mycobacterial infections. However, the interactions between WBM and free-living amoebae in water have been demonstrated for only few Mycobacterium spp. We investigated the ability of a number (n = 26) of Mycobacterium spp. to survive in the trophozoites and cysts of Acanthamoeba polyphaga. All the species tested entered the trophozoites of A. polyphaga and survived at this location over a period of 5 days. Moreover, all Mycobacterium spp. survived inside cysts for a period of 15 days. Intracellular Mycobacterium spp. within amoeba cysts survived when exposed to free chlorine (15 mg/liter) for 24 h. These data document the interactions between free-living amoebae and the majority of waterborne Mycobacterium spp. Further studies are required to examine the effects of various germicidal agents on the survival of WBM in an aquatic environment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
A. polyphaga trophozoite infected with M. bohemicum and stained by Ziehl-Nielsen at (A) day 1, (B) day 3, and (C) day 5.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Transmission electron-microscopic observation of M. mucogenicum (2-h coculture; A), M. massiliense (3-day coculture; B), M. septicum (5-day coculture; C), and M. terrae (5-day coculture; D) cocultivated with A. polyphaga trophozoites. The bacteria are seen inside an amoebal vacuole. Mi, mitochondria.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 3.
Transmission electron-microscopic observation of A. polyphaga relapsing free M. massiliense (A), relapsing M. terrae through lysis (B), and relapsing vesicles containing M. septicum (C and D).
FIG. 4.
FIG. 4.
Transmission electron-microscopic observation of A. polyphaga cysts containing M. chelonae (A) and M. abscessus (B) within a double cell wall and M. septicum within a double cell wall (C) and in the cytoplasm (D).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adékambi, T., M. Reynaud-Gaubert, G. Greub, M. J. Gevaudan, B. La Scola, D. Raoult, and M. Drancourt. 2004. Amoebal coculture of “Mycobacterium massiliense” sp. nov. from the sputum of a patient with hemoptoic pneumonia. J. Clin. Microbiol. 42:5493-5501. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adékambi, T., P. Colson, and M. Drancourt. 2003. rpoB-based identification of nonpigmented and late-pigmenting rapidly growing mycobacteria. J. Clin. Microbiol. 41:5699-5708. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adékambi, T., and M. Drancourt. 2004. Dissection of phylogenic relationships among nineteen rapidly growing mycobacterium species by 16S rRNA, hsp65, sodA, recA, and rpoB gene sequencing. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 54:2095-2105. - PubMed
    1. Adékambi, T., and M. Drancourt. 2006. Isolation of Mycobacterium septicum from the sputum of patient suffering hemoptoic pneumonia. Res. Microbiol. 157:466-470. - PubMed
    1. Angenent, L. T., S. T. Kelley, A. St Amand, N. R. Pace, and M. T. Hernandez. 2005. Molecular identification of potential pathogens in water and air of a hospital therapy pool. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102:4860-4865. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources