Assessment of Soil Features on the Growth of Environmental Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Isolates from Hawai'i.

ABSTRACT: Environmental nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), with the potential to cause opportunistic lung infections, can reside in soil. This might be particularly relevant in Hawai'i, a geographic hot spot for NTM infections and whose soil composition differs from many other areas of the world. Soil components are likely to contribute to NTM prevalence in certain niches as food sources or attachment scaffolds, but the particular types of soils, clays, and minerals that impact NTM growth are not well-defined. Hawai'i soil and chemically weathered rock (saprolite) samples were examined to characterize the microbiome and quantify 11 mineralogical features as well as soil pH. Machine learning methods were applied to identify important soil features influencing the presence of NTM. Next, these features

SUBMITTER: Glickman CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7580544 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature