Infection during infancy and long incubation period of leprosy suggested in a case of a chimpanzee used for medical research.
The length of the incubation period of leprosy following Mycobacterium leprae infection has never been conclusively determined, owing to the lack of a method to demonstrate the presence of an asymptomatic infection. We report a rare case of leprosy in a chimpanzee in which a 30-year incubation period was strongly suggested by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis.
Suzuki
Koichi
K
Leprosy Research Center, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 4-2-1 Aoba-cho, Higashimurayama-shi, Tokyo 189-0002, Japan. koichis@nih.go.jp
Udono
Toshifumi
T
Fujisawa
Michiko
M
Tanigawa
Kazunari
K
Idani
Gen'ichi
G
Ishii
Norihisa
N
D000818:Animals; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D055256:Infectious Disease Incubation Period; D007918:Leprosy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology / Q000662:veterinary*; D009166:Mycobacterium leprae / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D018419:Primate Diseases / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D004269:DNA, Bacterial