ABSTRACT
The Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC), especially M. avium, is an important opportunistic pathogen of AIDS patients in the United States. In Puerto Rico, the incidence of infections caused by MAC has not been determined. This is due, in part, to the difficulties associated to the microbiological identification of the microorganisms. In this work, a commercially available kit (AccuProbe, Gen-Probe, Inc., San Diego, CA) utilizing a DNA probe complementary to rRNA of M. avium and M. intracellulare was used to identify seventeen MAC strains and one unknown atypical mycobacterium recovered in culture in Puerto Rico from clinical samples. The results obtained revealed that M. avium was the predominant species recovered (83 per cent of isolates tested). Only two cultures were identified as M. intracellulare. The unknown culture, which did not react with either probe, turned out to be M. gordonae. The probe tests not only are simple to perform, but provide cultural identification results in as little as two hours. This study, the first one of its kind in Puerto Rico, demonstrates that the nucleic acid probes for the cultural identification of M. avium and M. intracellulare offer the potential of providing a prompt diagnosis and much needed data on the epidemiology of MAC infections in Puerto Rico
Subject(s)
Humans , DNA Probes , DNA, Bacterial/isolation & purification , Mycobacterium avium Complex/isolation & purification , Mycobacterium avium/isolation & purification , Cerebrospinal Fluid/microbiology , Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid/microbiology , Bone Marrow/microbiology , Mycobacterium avium Complex/genetics , Mycobacterium avium/genetics , Skin/microbiology , Sputum/microbiologyABSTRACT
The identification of Streptococcus mutans from dental plaque samples with rapid systems, such as the RapID STR System, has not been recommended by the manufacturers. In this study, we evaluated the use of the above method for the identification of 34 human dental plaque Streptococcus mutans strains which had been identified previously by conventional procedures. The results obtained demonstrate that 88.2 per cent of the Streptococcus mutans strains tested were identifiable by the rapid method
Subject(s)
Humans , Dental Plaque/microbiology , Streptococcus mutans/isolation & purification , Bacteriological Techniques , Fermentation , HydrolysisABSTRACT
La técnica de hibridomas, desarrollada por Kohler y Milstein, permite la obtención de anticuerpos de especificidad única (p.e. anticuerpos monoclonales). Esta metododlogía fue introducida en el Laboratorio de Immunología del Departamento de Microbiología de la Escuela de Medicina, Recinto de Ciencias Médicas, UPR en 1986. La producción de anticuerpos monoclonales contra Sp2/0-Ag 14 que aquí se reporta, describe la metodología utilizada y es de importancia porque constituye el primer trabajo sobre anticuerpos monoclonales realizado en el Recinto de Ciencias Médicas y en Puerto Rico
Subject(s)
Rats , Animals , Antibodies, Monoclonal/biosynthesis , Antigens, Neoplasm/immunology , Antigens, Surface/immunology , Hybridomas/immunology , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay , Tumor Cells, Cultured/immunologyABSTRACT
Se encontró que cepas de Nocardia asteroides y N. brasiliensis poseenn actividad de fosfatasa ácida. Esta se encuentra asociada a las células y aumenta según éstas se reproducen durante su ciclo de crecimiento. De las cepas probadas, N. brasiliensis posee la mayor actividad enzimática. Las implicaciones de estos hallazgos se relacionan a evidencia reciente que sugiere que otras fosfatasas microbianas pueden constituir factores de patogenicidad para los humanos