What characteristics make M leprae different from other mycobacteria?
What characteristics make M leprae different from other mycobacteria?
Compared to the bacterium causing tuberculosis, M. leprae reveals extreme reductive evolution with less than half of the genome containing functional genes. Reductive evolution, gene decay, and genome downsizing may explain the unusually long generation time and the inability to culture the organism in vitro.
What is the morphology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a fairly large nonmotile rod-shaped bacterium distantly related to the Actinomycetes. Many non pathogenic mycobacteria are components of the normal flora of humans, found most often in dry and oily locales. The rods are 2-4 micrometers in length and 0.2-0.5 um in width.
Is Mycobacterium leprae Gram negative or positive?
Mycobacterium leprae is an obligate intracellular pathogen, first identified in the nodules of lepromatous leprosy patients by Armauer Hansen in 1873. It is a rod-shaped, Gram-positive organism that is acid-fast when stained by the Ziehl–Nielsen or the better Fite methods.
Does Mycobacterium leprae have flagella?
The bacterium has neither cilia or flagella, and is therefore non-motile. Its hydrophobic cell wall contains a high concentration of lipids which repels water.
What is the difference between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae?
TB and leprosy are both chronic infections, but they are very different diseases (Table 1). Mycobacterium tuberculosis is cultivable; Myco- bacterium leprae is not. M leprae infects peripheral nerves; M tuberculosis does not.
What type of organism is Mycobacterium leprae?
Mycobacterium leprae is a bacterium that causes leprosy, also known as “Hansen’s disease”, which is a chronic infectious disease that damages the peripheral nerves and targets the skin, eyes, nose, and muscles….
| Mycobacterium leprae | |
|---|---|
| Family: | Mycobacteriaceae |
| Genus: | Mycobacterium |
| Species: | M. leprae |
| Binomial name |
What does Mycobacterium leprae look like?
M. leprae is a strongly acid-fast, rod-shaped bacterium. It has parallel sides and rounded ends, measuring 1-8 microns in length and 0.2-0.5 micron in diameter, and closely resembles the tubercle bacillus.
Is Mycobacterium leprae aerobic or anaerobic?
Mycobacterium leprae is an aerobic, rod-shaped, Gram-positive bacterium in the Mycobacteriaceae family. Infections with this bacterium lead to leprosy.
Why does Mycobacterium not Gram stain?
Mycobacteria are “Acid Fast” 1. They cannot be stained by the Gram stain because of their high lipid content.
What are the virulence factors of Mycobacterium leprae?
Virulence factors
- Iron utilization.
- Waxy exterior.
- Macrophage invasion.
- Schwann cell invasion.
- Drug resistance.
What type of pathogen is Mycobacterium leprae?
Mycobacterium leprae is a bacterium that causes leprosy, also known as “Hansen’s disease”, which is a chronic infectious disease that damages the peripheral nerves and targets the skin, eyes, nose, and muscles.
Is Mycobacterium leprae a TB?
What was known? Tuberculosis (TB) and leprosy are two chronic granulomatous disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae, respectively.
What is Mycobacterium leprae?
Mycobacterium leprae is straight rods about 1 – 8 x 0.2 – 0.5µm and it appears either single or groups. It is an intracellular low acid-fast bacillus with 5% H2SO4. It is bound together like cigar bundles by a lipid-like substance called Glia. The Globi present in Virchow’s lepra cells or Foamy cells.
What ultrastructural features are unique to Mycoplasma leprae?
Researchers have described ultrastructural features of the cell wall that may be unique to M. leprae: aberrant morphology, wall bands, and paracrystalline bodies.
What is the size of M leprae?
M. leprae is an acid-fast staining rod, 1–8 µm long and 0.3 µm in diameter, and thus does not differ remarkably from M. tuberculosis in that respect.
What are the virulence factors of Mycobacterium leprosy?
Virulence factors include a waxy exterior coating, formed by the production of mycolic acids unique to Mycobacterium. Mycobacterium leprae was sensitive to dapsone (diaminodiphenylsulfone, the first effective treatment which was discovered for leprosy in the 1940s), but resistance against this antibiotic has developed over time.
