Authors: Hulten K, El-Zimaity HM, Karttunen TJ, Almashhrawi A, Schwartz MR, Graham DY, El-Zaatari FA.
Institution: Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Objectives: Reports about the association between Crohn's disease (CD) and cell wall-deficient (CWD) forms of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (M. paratuberculosis) are controversial. This may be due to the heterogeneous nature of CD where only about 50% of the patients show granulomatous inflammation. Detection of CWD forms of M. paratuberculosis in tissues from patients with CD would support its association with the disease. To help identify these forms in inflamed tissues, a previously developed and optimized nonradioactive in situ hybridization method was applied on well-defined tissue materials obtained from patients with CD, ulcerative colitis (UC), and controls.Results: Six of 15 (40%) patients with CD and granulomas showed positive signals in myofibroblasts and macrophages. Interestingly, no positive signals were observed within granulomas. Only 4.5% of 22 CD samples from patients with nongranulomatous disease, 9.5% of 21 UC, and remarkably, none of the 22 non-IBD patients were M. paratuberculosis positive.
Conclusion: The demonstration of DNA from CWD forms of M. paratuberculosis in this limited number of CD tissues further supports and confirms previous reports of its association with the granulomatous type of the disease.
Related Studies:
- Detection and Verification of Mycobacterium Avium Subsp. Paratuberculosis in Fresh Ileocolonic Mucosal Biopsy Specimens from Individuals With and Without Crohn's Disease
- Culture of Mycobacterium Avium Subspecies Paratuberculosis from the Blood of Patients with Crohn's Disease
- High Prevalence of Mycobacterium Avium subspecies Paratuberculosis IS900 DNA in Gut Tissues from Individuals with Crohn's Disease
- Evaluation of Surgical Tissue from Patients with Crohn's Disease for the Presence of Mycobacterium Avium subspecies Paratuberculosis DNA by in situ Hybridization and Nested Polymerase Chain Reaction
