Intracellular parasites can be classified into those that reside within a host vacuole and those which grow directly in the host cytoplasm. Members of the latter group, which includes Rickettsia, Shigellae, Trypanosoma cruzi, and Listeria monocytogenes, possess haemolytic activity associated with the ability to enter the host cytoplasm. Therefore mutants of L. monocytogenes lacking a pore-forming haemolysin, listeriolysin O, do not escape from the endosomal compartment and consequently fail to become established in the cytoplasm. To examine the role of listeriolysin O, we cloned the structural gene for the L. monocytogenes haemolysin, hlyA, into an asporogenic mutant of Bacillus subtilis under the control of an IPTG-inducible promoter. After being internalized by the macrophage-like cell line J774, haemolytic B. subtilis disrupted the phagosomal membrane and grew rapidly within the macrophage cytoplasm. These results show that a single gene product is sufficient to convert a common soil bacterium into a parasite that can grow in the cytoplasm of a mammalian cell.

In the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) and nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) diseases, as in all infectious diseases, the key issue is to define the source of infection and to disclose its routes of transmission and dissemination in the environment. For this to be accomplished, the ability of discerning and tracking individual Mycobacterium strains is of critical importance. Molecular typing methods have greatly improved our understanding of the biology of mycobacteria and provide powerful tools to combat the diseases caused by these pathogens. The utility of various typing methods depends on the Mycobacterium species under investigation as well as on the research question. For tuberculosis, different methods have different roles in phylogenetic analyses and person-to-person transmission studies. In NTM diseases, most investigations involve the search for environmental sources or phylogenetic relationships. Here, too, the type of setting determines which methodology is most suitable. Within this review, we summarize currently available molecular methods for strain typing of M. tuberculosis and some NTM species, most commonly associated with human disease. For the various methods, technical practicalities as well as discriminatory power and accomplishments are reviewed.

BackgroundThe Malassezia yeasts which belong to the physiological microflora of human skin have also been implicated in several dermatological disorders, including pityriasis versicolor (PV), atopic dermatitis (AD), and psoriasis (PS). The Malassezia genus has repeatedly been revised and it now accommodates 14 species, all but one being lipid-dependent species. The traditional, phenotype-based identification schemes of Malassezia species are fraught with interpretative ambiguities and inconsistencies, and are thus increasingly being supplemented or replaced by DNA typing methods. The aim of this study was to explore the species composition of Malassezia microflora on the skin of healthy volunteers and patients with AD and PS.MethodsSpecies characterization was performed by conventional, culture-based methods and subsequently molecular techniques: PCR-RFLP and sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) 1/2 regions and the D1/D2 domains of the 26S rRNA gene. The Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were used for statistical analysis.ResultsMalassezia sympodialis was the predominant species, having been cultured from 29 (82.9%) skin samples collected from 17 out of 18 subjects under the study. Whereas AD patients yielded exclusively M. sympodialis isolates, M. furfur isolates were observed only in PS patients. The isolation of M. sympodialis was statistically more frequent among AD patients and healthy volunteers than among PS patients (P < 0.03). Whether this mirrors any predilection of particular Malassezia species for certain clinical conditions needs to be further evaluated. The overall concordance between phenotypic and molecular methods was quite high (65%), with the discordant results being rather due to the presence of multiple species in a single culture (co-colonization) than true misidentification. All Malassezia isolates were susceptible to cyclopiroxolamine and azole drugs, with M. furfur isolates being somewhat more drug tolerant than other Malassezia species.ConclusionsThis study provides an important insight into the species composition of Malassezia microbiota in human skin. The predominance of M. sympodialis in both normal and pathologic skin, contrasts with other European countries, reporting M. globosa and M. restricta as the most frequently isolated Malassezia species.

The Listeria monocytogenes hemolysin listeriolysin 0 (LLO) plays a major role in mediating the escape of L. monocytogenes from a vacuolar compartment. In a previous report, it was shown that BaciUlus subtilis expressing LLO could escape from a host vacuolar compartment and grow in the cytoplasm (J. Bielecki, P.

Currently, mutations in three genes, namely rrs, rpsL, and gidB, encoding 16S rRNA, ribosomal protein S12, and 16S rRNA-specific methyltransferase, respectively, are considered to be involved in conferring resistance to streptomycin (STR) in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the spectrum and frequency of these mutations in M. tuberculosis clinical isolates, both resistant and susceptible to STR. Sixty-four M. tuberculosis isolates recovered from as many TB patients from Poland in 2004 were included in the study. Within the sample were 50 multidrug-resistant (32 STR-resistant and 18 STR-susceptible) and 14 pan-susceptible isolates. Preliminary testing for STR resistance was performed with the 1% proportion method. The MICs of STR were determined by the Etest method. Mutation profiling was carried out by amplifying and sequencing the entire rrs, rpsL, and gidB genes. Non-synonymous mutations in either rrs or rpsL gene were detected in 23 (71.9%) of the STR-resistant and none of the STR-susceptible isolates. Mutations in the gidB gene were distributed among 12 (37.5%) STR-resistant and 13 (40.6%) STR-susceptible isolates. Four (12.5%) STR-resistant isolates were wild-type at all three loci examined. None of the rrs, rpsL or gidB mutations could be linked to low, intermediate or high level of STR resistance. In accordance with previous findings, the gidB 47T→G (L16R) mutation was associated with the Latin American-Mediterranean genotype family, whereas 276A→C (E92D) and 615A→G (A205A) mutations of the gidB gene were associated with the Beijing lineage. The study underlines the usefulness of rrs and rpsL mutations as molecular markers for STR resistance yet not indicative of its level. The gidB polymorphisms can serve as phylogenetic markers.