Mycobacterium abscessus phospholipase C expression is induced during coculture within amoebae and enhances M. abscessus virulence in mice.

ABSTRACT: Mycobacterium abscessus is a pathogenic, rapidly growing mycobacterium involved in pulmonary and cutaneo-mucous infections worldwide, to which cystic fibrosis patients are exquisitely susceptible. The analysis of the genome sequence of M. abscessus showed that this bacterium is endowed with the metabolic pathways typically found in environmental microorganisms that come into contact with soil, plants, and aquatic environments, where free-living amoebae are frequently present. M. abscessus also contains several genes that are characteristically found only in pathogenic bacteria. One of them is MAB_0555, encoding a putative phospholipase C (PLC) that is absent from most other rapidly growing mycobacteria, including Mycobacterium chelonae and Mycobacterium smegmatis. Here, we report that puri

SUBMITTER: Bakala N'Goma JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4294255 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature