Mycobacteria Flashcards
What is their shape? Are they spore forming bacteria?
They are rod shaped, nonspore forming bacteria
Are they aerobic, anaerobic or facultative anaerobes?
Aerobic
What do we call them?
Acid fast bacilli
What are the 3 main species?
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex
Mycobacterium leprae
Which diseases are caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
Pulmonary tuberculosis
Extrapulmonary tuberculosis
Tuberculosis in HIV infected patients
What is the difference between pulmonary and extrapulmonary tuberculosis and the one caused an HIV patients?
The first 2 can be treated and are responsive to anti-tuberculous drugs but the second one is multi drug resistant
What do we call the mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex?
Atypical mycobacteria or non-tuberculous mycobacteria
What’s the outcome of the infection?
Asymptomatic colonization
Pulmonary disease similar to tuberculosis
Disseminated disease in HIV infected patients
What causes an infection with mycobacterium leprea?
tuberculosis leprosy
lepromatous leprosy
In which medium they grow? What does it contain?
Lowenstein Jensen medium
It’s contains egg yolk, malachite green dye that inhibits the growth of many bacteria
What’s the typical appearance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis after culture? Mycobacterium kansasii? Mycobacterium avium?
- Creamy, bread cramp like colonies
- Not bread crumb, it’s a big yellow colony
- Not bread crumb, more spread colonies
How mycobacteria are differentiated according to the time needed for colonies to appear on the medium?
Slow growers
Rapid growers
Which one are considered slow growers?
M. tuberculosis
M. leprae
M. bovis
M. marinum
Which one are considered rapid growers?
M. fortuitum
M. chelonae
Which staining is used with mycobacteria?
Acid fast staining (kinyoun staining) which gives pink colonies on a blue background
