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Case Reports
. 1998 Jul;36(7):1840-5.
doi: 10.1128/JCM.36.7.1840-1845.1998.

Diagnosis of Mycobacterium microti infections among humans by using novel genetic markers

D van Soolingen  1 , A G van der Zanden, P E de Haas, G T Noordhoek, A Kiers, N A Foudraine, F Portaels, A H Kolk, K Kremer, J D van Embden
Affiliations
Case Reports

Diagnosis of Mycobacterium microti infections among humans by using novel genetic markers

D van Soolingen et al. J Clin Microbiol. 1998 Jul.

Abstract

As a result of DNA typing of Mycobacterium microti isolates from animals in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, we diagnosed four human M. microti infections. These are the first M. microti infections among humans to be reported. Three of the patients were immunocompromised and suffered from generalized forms of tuberculosis. The fourth patient was a 34-year-old immunocompetent male with a persistent cough and undefined X-ray abnormalities. Two of the M. microti infections were recognized by their IS6110 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns, which showed a high degree of similarity with those of M. microti strains isolated from a pig and a ferret in The Netherlands. The two other human M. microti infections were recognized by using the recently developed DNA fingerprinting method, "spoligotyping," directly on clinical material. All M. microti isolates from the United Kingdom and The Netherlands were found to contain an exceptionally short genomic direct repeat region, resulting in identical two-spacer sequence reactions in spoligotyping. In contrast, the highly similar IS6110 RFLP patterns of the vole strains from the United Kingdom differed considerably from the RFLPs of all M. microti strains isolated in The Netherlands, suggesting that geographic isolation led to divergent strains in the United Kingdom and on the continent.

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Figures

FIG. 1
FIG. 1
IS6110 RFLP patterns and spoligotyping (spoligo) patterns of all described mycobacterial isolates.
FIG. 2
FIG. 2
Map of The Netherlands indicating the geographic origins of the animal and human tuberculous infections caused by M. microti and the times of diagnosis.
FIG. 3
FIG. 3
Ziehl-Neelsen-stained sputum of patient D. Note the characteristic curved acid-fast bacilli.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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