Genome analysis as a new and powerful tool to design suitable culture media. Application to tropheryma whipplei.
Extract: Tropheryma whipplei is a Gram-positive human pathogen that is the causative agent of Whipple's disease. There have been a number of important findings about this bacterium in the past 13 years. In 2000, almost a century after the initial description of the disease by Whipple in 1907, we succeeded for the first time in isolating and propagating this bacterium from the cardiac valve of a patient with endocarditis. This bacterium is particularly recalcitrant to cultivation. Survival and replication in culture was achieved by inoculating living eukaryotic cells, namely human fibroblasts. Availability of such a reproducible protocol for isolation of the infectious bacteria allowed evaluation of new diagnostic assays and contributed to enhancement of our understanding of both the diversity and the epidemiology of T. whipplei and the infections that it causes. Moreover this step was of importance since it permits further sequencing of the genome of this microorganism about which little was known. In 2003, the genome sequences of two different strains were published.
Renesto
Patricia
P
Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, Faculté de Médecine, 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille, France.
Raoult
Didier
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