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Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare
Mycobacteria are a large family of over 100 species, most of which do not cause diseases in humans. The majority of the mycobacterial species are referred to as nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), meaning they are not the causative agent of tuberculous (TB) or leprosy, i.e., Mycobacterium tuberculous...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6463083/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30909391 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms7030090 |
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author | Lopeman, Rose C. Harrison, James Desai, Maya Cox, Jonathan A. G. |
author_facet | Lopeman, Rose C. Harrison, James Desai, Maya Cox, Jonathan A. G. |
author_sort | Lopeman, Rose C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Mycobacteria are a large family of over 100 species, most of which do not cause diseases in humans. The majority of the mycobacterial species are referred to as nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), meaning they are not the causative agent of tuberculous (TB) or leprosy, i.e., Mycobacterium tuberculous complex and Mycobacterium leprae, respectively. The latter group is undoubtedly the most infamous, with TB infecting an estimated 10 million people and causing over 1.2 million deaths in 2017 alone TB and leprosy also differ from NTM in that they are only transmitted from person to person and have no environmental reservoir, whereas NTM infections are commonly acquired from the environment. It took until the 1950′s for NTM to be recognised as a potential lung pathogen in people with underlying pulmonary disease and another three decades for NTM to be widely regarded by the medical community when Mycobacterium avium complex was identified as the most common group of opportunistic pathogens in AIDS patients. This review focuses on an emerging NTM called Mycobacterium abscessus (M. abs). M. abs is a rapidly growing NTM that is responsible for opportunistic pulmonary infections in patients with structural lung disorders such as cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis, as well as a wide range of skin and soft tissue infections in humans. In this review, we discuss how we came to understand the pathogen, how it is currently treated and examine drug resistance mechanisms and novel treatments currently in development. We highlight the urgent need for new and effective treatments for M. abs infection as well as improved in vivo methods of efficacy testing. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6463083 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-64630832019-04-22 Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare Lopeman, Rose C. Harrison, James Desai, Maya Cox, Jonathan A. G. Microorganisms Review Mycobacteria are a large family of over 100 species, most of which do not cause diseases in humans. The majority of the mycobacterial species are referred to as nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), meaning they are not the causative agent of tuberculous (TB) or leprosy, i.e., Mycobacterium tuberculous complex and Mycobacterium leprae, respectively. The latter group is undoubtedly the most infamous, with TB infecting an estimated 10 million people and causing over 1.2 million deaths in 2017 alone TB and leprosy also differ from NTM in that they are only transmitted from person to person and have no environmental reservoir, whereas NTM infections are commonly acquired from the environment. It took until the 1950′s for NTM to be recognised as a potential lung pathogen in people with underlying pulmonary disease and another three decades for NTM to be widely regarded by the medical community when Mycobacterium avium complex was identified as the most common group of opportunistic pathogens in AIDS patients. This review focuses on an emerging NTM called Mycobacterium abscessus (M. abs). M. abs is a rapidly growing NTM that is responsible for opportunistic pulmonary infections in patients with structural lung disorders such as cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis, as well as a wide range of skin and soft tissue infections in humans. In this review, we discuss how we came to understand the pathogen, how it is currently treated and examine drug resistance mechanisms and novel treatments currently in development. We highlight the urgent need for new and effective treatments for M. abs infection as well as improved in vivo methods of efficacy testing. MDPI 2019-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6463083/ /pubmed/30909391 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms7030090 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Lopeman, Rose C. Harrison, James Desai, Maya Cox, Jonathan A. G. Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title | Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title_full | Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title_fullStr | Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title_full_unstemmed | Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title_short | Mycobacterium abscessus: Environmental Bacterium Turned Clinical Nightmare |
title_sort | mycobacterium abscessus: environmental bacterium turned clinical nightmare |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6463083/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30909391 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms7030090 |
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