Mycobacterium branderi
Encyclopedia
Mycobacterium branderi is a slowly growing, nonchromogenic Mycobacterium
first isolated from patients in Finland. Etymology
: of Brander, referring to Eljas Brander, the former head of the Tuberculosis Laboratory of the National Public Health Institute, Finland, who collected the strains.
Colony characteristics
Physiology
Differential characteristics
Mycobacterium
Mycobacterium is a genus of Actinobacteria, given its own family, the Mycobacteriaceae. The genus includes pathogens known to cause serious diseases in mammals, including tuberculosis and leprosy...
first isolated from patients in Finland. Etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
: of Brander, referring to Eljas Brander, the former head of the Tuberculosis Laboratory of the National Public Health Institute, Finland, who collected the strains.
Description
Microscopy- Acid-fast delicate slender rods that are often slightly curved, 1.2 to 3 um long.
Colony characteristics
- Colonies are nonchromogenic and produce smooth, often umbonate, off-white to grayish colonies on Middlebrook 7H11 agar.
Physiology
- Slowly growing, reaching full colony size after 2 to 3 weeks.
- Growth is equally good at 37C and 45C and is only slightly delayed at 25C.
- The type strain is negative for Tween 80 hydrolysis, catalase, urease, and nitrate reductase activities and niacin.
- Strongly positive for arylsulfatase activity in 14-day tests and moderately to weakly positive for nicotinamidase and pyrazinamidase activities.
- In susceptibility tests the type strain was resistant to isoniazid, rifampin, pyrazinamide, and cycloserine but susceptible to ethambutol, streptomycin, ethionamide, and capreomycin.
Differential characteristics
- Differentiation by 16S rRNA sequencing
- Distinguishing of M. branderi from M. celatum by pigment production
- Differentiation of M. branderi from M. xenopi on the basis of good growth of M. branderi at room temperature, the lack of pigment production by M. branderi
- Differentiation of M. branderi and M. cookii: M. cookii is scotochromogenic and does not grow at 37°C.
Pathogenesis
- The first strains of M. branderi were isolated from samples obtained from nine patients, some of whom had cavitary mycobacteriosis of the lungs that was resistant to available drugs. In most cases, repeat samples obtained from each patient were positive for acid-fast bacilli as determined by microscopy, and the only cultivable species was M. branderi. M. branderi has to be considered a potential human pathogen.