Title
Endosymbiotic Mycobacterium chelonae in a Vermamoeba vermiformis strain isolated from the nasal mucosa of an HIV patient in Lima, Peru
Date Issued
01 November 2014
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Mena R.
Zuñiga J.
Cermeño P.
Martín-Navarro C.M.
González A.C.
López-Arencibia A.
Reyes-Batlle M.
Piñero J.E.
Valladares B.
Lorenzo-Morales J.
Publisher(s)
Elsevier
Abstract
In March 2010, a 35year-old HIV/AIDS female patient was admitted to hospital to start treatment with Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) since during a routine control a dramatic decrease in the CD4+ levels was detected. At this stage, a nasal swab from each nostril was collected from the patient to include it in the samples for the case study mentioned above. Moreover, it is important to mention that the patient was diagnosed in 2009 with invasive pneumococcal disease, acute cholecystitis, pancreatitis and pulmonary tuberculosis. The collected nasal swabs from both nostrils were positive for Vermamoeba vermiformis species which was identified using morphological and PCR/DNA sequencing approaches. Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) homology and phylogenetic analysis confirmed the amoebic strain to belong to V. vermiformis species. Molecular identification of the Mycobacterium strain was carried out using a bacterial universal primer pair for the 16S rDNA gene at the genus level and the rpoB gene was amplified and sequenced as previously described to identify the Mycobacterium species (Shin et al., 2008; Sheen et al., 2013). Homology and phylogenetic analyses of the rpoB gene confirmed the species as Mycobacterium chelonae. In parallel, collected swabs were tested by PCR and were positive for the presence of V. vermiformis and M. chelonae. This work describes the identification of an emerging bacterial pathogen, M. chelonae from a Free-Living Amoebae (FLA) strain belonging to the species V. vermiformis that colonized the nasal cavities of an HIV/AIDS patient, previously diagnosed with TB. Awareness within clinicians and public health professionals should be raised, as pathogenic agents such as M. chelonae may be using FLA to propagate and survive in the environment.
Start page
S127
End page
S130
Volume
145
Issue
S
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Epidemiología Anatomía, Morfología Patología Fisiología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84912103681
PubMed ID
Source
Experimental Parasitology
Resource of which it is part
Experimental Parasitology
ISSN of the container
00144894
Sponsor(s)
This work was supported by the grants RICET (Project No. RD12/0018/0012 of the programme of Redes Temáticas de Investigación Cooperativa, FIS), Spanish Ministry of Health, Madrid, Spain and the Project FIS PI10/01298 “Protozoosis emergentes por amebas de vida libre: aislamiento y caracterización molecular, identificación de cepas transportadoras de otros agentes patógenos y búsqueda de quimioterapias efectivas” and PI13/00490 “Protozoosis Emergentes por Amebas de Vida Libre: Aislamiento, Caracterización, Nuevas Aproximaciones Terapéuticas y Traslación Clínica de los Resultados” from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. ALA was funded by a grant “Ayudas del Programa de Formación de Personal Investigador, para la realización de Tesis Doctorales” from the Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información from the Canary Islands Government. CMMN was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the Fundación Canaria Manuel Morales, La Palma, Canary Islands. MRB was funded by CEI Canarias, Campus Atlántico Internacional and Becas Fundación Cajacanarias para Postgraduados 2014. JLM was supported by the Ramón y Cajal Subprogramme from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competivity RYC-2011-08863. AMCV received a scholarship by the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional y Desarrollo (AECID) for a Master degree in Biomedicine and was also funded by CEI Canarias, Campus Atlántico Internacional in University of La Laguna Tenerife, Spain.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus