Mycobacterium paratuberculosis in Intestinal Tissue from Patients with Crohn's Disease Demonstrated by a Nested Primer Polymerase Chain Reaction

Abstract

Whether the presence of M. paratuberculosis is connected to the inflammatory bowel disease or is a mere coincidence cannot be stated. We find this presence interesting and encouraging for further investigations.

Absence of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in the microdissected granulomas of Crohn's disease

“…4,6,7,9,15,16,19 Other authors have found a variable number of cases, up to 100%, to harbor the organism. 1,3,5,8,[10][11][12][13][14]18 Several reasons may be responsible for the variability in these results. Differences in patient cohorts, techniques, and experimental conditions immediately come to mind.…”

“…3,7,8,[10][11][12][13][14] Thus, the finding of MAP DNA in Crohn's disease, including in paraffin-embedded resection specimens, 1,12 still leaves unanswered the question of whether the organism may be environmentally acquired and nonspecifically present. MAP has been cultured from municipal water supplies 11 and pasteurized milk, 25,26 suggesting that it may be ubiquitously present in the environment.…”

“…This may explain the reported increased detection of MAP in these patients compared to ulcerative colitis and control patients. 2,8,[10][11][12][13][14] The possibility also exists that Crohn's disease is a heterogenous group of diseases, with MAP being one etiologic agent. If this were so, then the conflicting results in the literature could be explained by the inclusion of varying proportions of cases actually caused by MAP.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] However, if MAP and Crohn's disease are etiologically related, then intuitively the granulomas that are characteristic of the latter should harbor the organism. Indeed, some authors have associated the ability to identify MAP DNA with the presence of granulomas, 1,2 while others have not.…”

Detection of Mycobacterium Bovis in Formalin-Fixed, Paraffin-Embedded Tissues of Cattle and Elk by PCR Amplification of an IS6110 Sequence Specific for Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Complex Organisms

“…A number of studies have incorporated the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) into techniques for detection or identification of mycobacteria in for-malin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues of humans 2,5,6,[8][9][10][11][12]19,20,22,[24][25][26] There are no reports of use of the technique for diagnosing tuberculosis in animals, but the procedure has been used to identify M. paratuberculosis in cattle with Johne's disease. 21 In this paper, we describe a PCR test that has been very effective for diagnosing tuberculosis using paraffin sections of diagnostic samples submitted as part of the US bovine tuberculosis eradication program.…”