Mycobacteria in the intestine of Japanese patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
OBJECTIVE
It is still controversial whether or not a mycobacterial infection may be a cause of Crohn's disease. Mycobacterium paratuberculosis may be very difficult to detect using routine culture techniques. To clarify this, we detected mycobacterial DNA in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.


METHODS
IS900 sequences highly specific to M. paratuberculosis and the groEL gene encoding a conserved mycobacterial antigen were studied in colonic mucosa using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR products were analyzed by Southern blot hybridization.


RESULTS
IS900 sequences were detected in all (100%) of 10 patients with Crohn's disease, in 11 (61.1%) of 18 patients with ulcerative colitis, and in 14 (87.5%) of 16 control patients with noninflammatory bowel disease. All IS900 positive samples had groEL PCR products.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results, on the basis of the prevalence, do not support the hypothesis that M. paratuberculosis is involved in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease.
Suenaga
K
K
First Department of Internal Medicine, Kochi Medical School, Japan.
Yokoyama
Y
Y
Okazaki
K
K
Yamamoto
Y
Y
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001483:Base Sequence; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D003424:Crohn Disease / Q000382:microbiology; D015342:DNA Probes; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000382:microbiology*; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016927:Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
D015342:DNA Probes