title: Construction of a Nocardia brasiliensis fluorescent plasmid to study Actinomycetoma pathogenicity.
abstract: Nocardia brasiliensis, is a bacteria that lives as saprophyte in soil and causes a disease called actinomycetoma in both human and animals. Nocardia brasiliensis is an intracellular, facultative bacterium that replicates and survives within host macrophages. The mechanisms involved in the evasion of the microbicidal actions of macrophages remain unclear. The filamentous growth of N. brasiliensis is resistant to unicellular preparations, leading to inaccurate quantification of bacterial numbers by means of colony forming units (CFU). As successful survival studies with green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing bacterial strains have been reported, we constructed a recombinant GFP-expressing strain of N. brasiliensis. The virulence of the modified strain is maintained because it induces mycetoma in BALB/c mice. This new strain can be used for bacterial survival assays using cytometry and to elucidate the pathogenicity mechanisms in Actinomycetoma infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, School of Medicine and University Hospital, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey 64000, Mexico. msalinas@hu.uanl.mx
authors.forename: Mario C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Salinas-Carmona
authors.forename: María R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Rocha-Pizaña
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001681:Biological Assay; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D005453:Fluorescence; D005821:Genetic Techniques; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000166:cytology / Q000382:microbiology; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008271:Mycetoma / Q000382:microbiology*; D009615:Nocardia / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D009617:Nocardia Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics*; D014170:Transformation, Genetic; D014774:Virulence / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins