In situ detection of novel bacterial endosymbionts of Acanthamoeba spp. phylogenetically related to members of the order Rickettsiales.

ABSTRACT: Acanthamoebae are ubiquitous soil and water bactivores which may serve as amplification vehicles for a variety of pathogenic facultative bacteria and as hosts to other, presently uncultured bacterial endosymbionts. The spectrum of uncultured endosymbionts includes gram-negative rods and gram-variable cocci, the latter recently shown to be members of the Chlamydiales. We report here the isolation from corneal scrapings of two Acanthamoeba strains that harbor gram-negative rod endosymbionts that could not be cultured by standard techniques. These bacteria were phylogenetically characterized following amplification and sequencing of the near-full-length 16S rRNA gene. We used two fluorescently labelled oligonucleotide probes targeting signature regions within the retrieved sequences to detect

SUBMITTER: Fritsche TR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC91004 | biostudies-literature | 1999 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature