Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 154, No. 6, Dec 1996, 1864-1867.
Mycobacterium fortuitum glycolipids for the serodiagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis
L Escamilla, R Mancilla, W Glender and LM Lopez-Marin
Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Circuito Interior, Mexico.
Glycolipids belonging to the family of acylated trehaloses were isolated
from Mycobacterium fortuitum, a rapidly growing mycobacterial species, and
tested in the serologic diagnosis of human pulmonary tuberculosis by
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Di- and tri-O- acylated trehaloses from
M. fortuitum reacted with serum antibodies of patients with pulmonary
tuberculosis at higher titers than did with sera from healthy donors. With
both glycolipids, the sensitivity of the test was above 0.80 at a chosen
specificity of 0.98. Individuals with treated tuberculosis showed lower
antibody titers compared with their initial reactivities. These data show
that M. fortuitum could be used as a surrogate source of antigens for
tuberculosis serodiagnosis.
