title: Isolation of Balamuthia mandrillaris from urban dust,  free of known infectious involvement.
abstract: The free-living amoeba Balamuthia mandrillaris can cause fatal encephalitis in humans and other mammals. The organism is associated with soils, and soil exposure has been identified as a risk factor for this pathogen. However, B. mandrillaris has been isolated only once from soils believed to be the source of the infection in child from California, USA who died of Balamuthia amoebic encephalitis and once from another unrelated soil source. We report for a third time the isolation of B. mandrillaris from the environment and for the second time its isolation from a sample not known to be involved with pathogenicity. We have established the new clonal B. mandrillaris strain (ID-19) in axenic media. The identity of our isolate was originally by morphology using a light microscope and this has been confirmed by 16S rRNA gene PCR. The new strain ID-19 groups with others of the species. The fact that our isolate came from dust particles deposited on surfaces from the air in an urban environment may suggest that it is not just soil exposure that constitutes a risk factor for Balamuthia infection. This is the first report of this organism from Iran.
authors.affiliation: University Institute of Tropical Diseases and Public Health of the Canary Islands, University of La Laguna, Sánchez, La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niyyati
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lorenzo-Morales
authors.forename: Mostafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rezaeian
authors.forename: Carmen M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Martin-Navarro
authors.forename: Afsaneh Motevalli
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Haghi
authors.forename: Sutherland K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Maciver
authors.forename: Basilio
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Valladares
mesh_terms: D056894:Amoebozoa / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D000818:Animals; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D016054:DNA, Protozoan / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004391:Dust; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D020459:Genes, rRNA; D007492:Iran; D010802:Phylogeny; D016053:RNA, Protozoan / Q000235:genetics; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D016054:DNA, Protozoan; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D004391:Dust; D016053:RNA, Protozoan; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
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