A newly discovered mycobacterial pathogen isolated from laboratory colonies of Xenopus species with lethal infections produces a novel form of mycolactone, the Mycobacterium ulcerans macrolide toxin.

ABSTRACT: Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of Buruli ulcer, produces a macrolide toxin, mycolactone A/B, which is thought to play a major role in virulence. A disease similar to Buruli ulcer recently appeared in United States frog colonies following importation of the West African frog, Xenopus tropicalis. The taxonomic position of the frog pathogen has not been fully elucidated, but this organism, tentatively designated Mycobacterium liflandii, is closely related to M. ulcerans and Mycobacterium marinum, and as further evidence is gathered, it will most likely be considered a subspecies of one of these species. In this paper we show that M. liflandii produces a novel plasmid-encoded mycolactone, mycolactone E. M. liflandii contains all of the genes in the mycolactone cluster with the exc

SUBMITTER: Mve-Obiang A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1111873 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature