What characteristic is unique to Mycobacterium?
The distinguishing characteristic of all Mycobacterium species is that the cell wall is thicker than in many other bacteria, being hydrophobic, waxy, and rich in mycolic acids/mycolates.
Is Mycobacterium smegmatis salt tolerant?
smegmatis unique niches, such as its saprophytic life, high salt tolerance, and relative short generation time.
How Mycobacterium is differentiated and identified from the other bacteria?
Mycobacteria differ so strongly from other bacteria in their cell wall architecture and metabolism that they require specific diagnostic tests, i.e. stains, culture media, identification methods.
What are the main characteristics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis?
General Characteristics 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.
Is Mycobacterium smegmatis a Halophile?
smegmatis is a halotolerant mycobacterial species that synthesizes ectoine and hydroxyectoine to protect itself against the deleterious effects of high salt concentrations.
Where is Mycobacterium smegmatis found?
Mycobacterium smegmatis are mostly found in the soil, water, and plants. They tend mostly to exist near large bodies of water. Isolates have been discovered in 16 States, Australia, Russia, Canada, and Switzerland (1).
How can you tell the difference between mycobacteria and Gram-positive bacteria?
By contrast, Gram-positive bacteria lack an outer membrane but have a thick peptidoglycan cell wall outside of the cell membrane32 (Fig. 1b). In mycobacteria, peptidoglycan is covalently attached to arabinogalactan, which in turn is attached to mycolic acids.
How can you tell the difference between Mycobacterium?
Real-time PCR has been used to differentiate members of the M. tuberculosis complex from other mycobacteria (12, 13, 17). These assays, however, either detect only M. tuberculosis or require additional hybridization probe sets to detect other mycobacteria (12, 13, 17).
What characteristics make Mycobacterium tuberculosis different from other Gram-positive bacteria?
Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis H37Rv (MTB) which is a unique acid fast gram positive bacterium. It is unique because of its high lipid and mycolic acid content of its cell wall. It neither contains phospholipid outer membrane nor retains dye.
Is Mycobacterium Gram-positive or negative?
Mycobacteria are Gram-positive, catalase positive, non-motile, non-spore forming rod-shaped bacteria (0.2–0.6 μm wide and 1.0–10 μm long). The colony morphology of mycobacteria varies with some species growing as rough or smooth colonies.
Does Mycobacterium smegmatis flagella?
smegmatis and the slow-growing opportunistic pathogen M. avium have the ability to translocate on solid surfaces by a flagellum-independent spreading mechanism known as sliding (20).
Is M. smegmatis acid-fast or non acid-fast?
The small pink bacilli above are Mycobacterium smegmatis, an acid fast bacteria because they retain the primary dye. The darker staining cocci are Staphylococcus epidermidis , a non-acid fast bacterium.
Is Mycobacterium smegmatis motile?
M. smegmatis is a non-motile bacterium which, due to its relatively fast growth, is used as a model for other mycobacteria, particularly Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Is Mycobacterium aerobic or anaerobic?
Mycobacterium is a dominant genus in the soil, and all its species are obligate aerobes.
What does Mycobacterium smegmatis look like when growing?
When Mycobacterium smegmatis has been growing for quite some time (generally after 48 hr growth) and is abundant, the color will turn from white to a nonpigmented creamy yellow. It will also be waxy because of the high amount of unique Gram-positive cell wall coated with mycolic acids.
What is Mycobacterium smegmatis used for?
Mycobacterium smegmatis is very useful for the research analysis of other species in the genus Mycobacteria in cell culture laboratories. There are several Mycobacterial species that are common, harmful diseases, like Mycobacterium leprea, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Mycobacterium bovis.
Does Mycobacterium smegmatis produce mycolic acids?
In addition, Mycobacterium smegmatis requires a unique fatty acid biosynthesis to produce the mycolic acids that are present on the cell wall. Mycobacterium smegmatis has no motility and no formation of endospores (3, 13, 14).
Is Mycobacterium smegmatis aerobic or anaerobic?
Mycobacterium smegmatis is an aerobic organism. Mycobacerium smegmatis may donate its final electrons in aerobic respiration to oxygen using one of three terminal oxidases. In aerobic respiration, the bacteria undergo oxidative phosphorylation to yield the highest amount of energy.