A patient under immunosuppressive treatment of Hodgkin's disease developed generalized skin granulomata and subcutaneous abscesses. Several aspirated pus samples yielded acid-fast rods with the following properties: temperature optimum, about 30°C with no growth at 37°C; slow growth (2 to 4 weeks); nonchromogenic; hemoglobin or hemin requirement for growth; catalase negative; pyrazinamidase and nicotinamidase positive; and urease negative. The guanine-pluscytosine content of the deoxyribonucleic acid was calculated from the melting temperature to be 66.0 mol%. It is concluded that these isolates belong to a new species, for which the name Mycobacterium haemophilum is proposed. The type strain of this species is strain 1 (= ATCC 29548). The new species is related to M. marinum and M. ulcerans. In this communication, a new acid-fast organism from skin granulomata is described. It has temperature l i m i t s for growth similar to those of M. ulcerans and M. marinum, but its nutritional requirements, growth characteristics, and biochemical activities differ from those described for any other known pathogenic mycobacterium.?Submitted as a tribute to the memory of Werner B. Schaefer, from the Division
Mycobacterium haemophilum is an acid-fast rod-shaped organism, originally isolated from deep subcutaneous granulomata of a patient with Hodgkin's disease. Like the other two mycobacterial skin-pathogens, M. ulcerans and M. marinum, M. haemophilum has a maximum temperature for growth below 37 degrees C. Mycobacterium haemophilum is distinguished from all other species examined by its requirement of haemin for growth and its complete lack of catalase activity. Extraneous catalase cannot replace haemin as a growth factor for this organism. Mycobacterium haemophilum can also be differentiated from other species by the patterns of electrophoresis of protein extracts and by gas-liquid chromatography of saponificated and methylated lipid extracts. A monospecific-agglutinating antiserum against M. haemophilum was obtained by adsorption of an immunoserum with M. intracellulare. A number of slow-growing mycobacterial species develop on monolayers of McCoy fibroblasts, and growth on these tissue cultures can be observed much earlier than on artificial media. Mycobacterium haemophilum is characterized by exclusively intracellular development.
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