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Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Veterinary bacteriology: information about important bacteria
Veterinary bacteriology


Species/Subspecies: Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Categories: Zoonotic; notifiable diseases and bacteria
Etymology: Genus name: small fungus-like rod.
Species epithet: of tuberculosis.
Significance:  [Very important]   
Taxonomy:
Phylum
Actinomycetota
Class
Actinomycetia
Order
Mycobacteriales
Family
Mycobacteriaceae 
Genus
Mycobacterium
Type Strain: H37Rv = ATCC 27294.
Macromorphology (smell):
Micromorphology: Acid-fast rods (0.4 x 3.0 µm)
Gram +/Gram -:G+ (but difficult to gram stain)
Metabolism: Aerobic
Catalase/Oxidase:
Spec. Char.: M. tuberculosis is a slow grower (it takes more than 7 days to see colonies with the naked eye).
Disease:Human tuberculosis, which is a zoonosis.
Hosts: Different animal species (inkluding humans)
Clinical Picture:
Virulence Factors: Produce mycobactin, which is a so-called siderophore.
Genome Sequence:
Acc-noStrainSize (bp)Genome
NC_002755 CDC1551 4 403 837  

16S rRNA Seq.:
Acc-noStrainNumber of NTOperon
X58890 NCTC 7416 H37RvT 1 536 

Taxonomy/phylogeny:
 
About 175 species have been described within genus Mycobacterium and this genus is closely related to Rhodococcus, Nocardia and Corynebacterium. M. tuberculosis, M. bovis and M. caprae are very closely related to each other and have sometimes been regarded as subspecies of M. tuberculosis.

It is common to use the term Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC or MTBC) or Mycobacterium tuberculosis clade for the following very closely related species: M. africanum, M. bovis, M. canetti, M. caprae and M. tuberculosis and some other species, which are less important.

Legislation: Tuberculosis is notifyable in Sweden and is regulated by the law of epizootic diseases. M. tuberculosis belongs to category C as a potential bioterrorism agent according to NIAID.
Link: Epiwebb - om epizootisjukdomar [in Swedish]
Updated:2023-03-02

News

New names of bacterial phyla

The taxonomic category phylum was previously not regulated by the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP), but now this has changed and it was decided to revise the names of bacterial phyla. All phyla must be written in italics (which has been done on VetBact also before) and have the ending -ota.

Published 2023-03-01. Read more...
The taxonomy of chlamydias

Species within the family Chlamydiaceae were previously divided into two genera Chlamydia and Chlamydophila. However, the differences between these two genera were not that great and many research groups have not accepted this division. Therefore, the genus Chlamydophila has been returned to the genus Chlamydia and this change has now been incorporated in VetBact

Published 2023-03-15. Read more...

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