Enfermedades infecciosas

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY, Oct. 2008, p. 3296–3302 0095-1137/08/$08.00 0 doi:10.1128/JCM.02183-07 Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All RightsReserved.

Vol. 46, No. 10

Autofluorescence of Mycobacteria as a Tool for Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Sol Patino,1 Lorenzo Alamo,1 Mena Cimino,1 YvethCasart,1 Fulvia Bartoli,1 ˜ María J. García,2 and Leiria Salazar1*
Departamento de Biología Estructural, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Altos de Pipe,Estado Miranda, Venezuela,1 and Departamento de Medicina Preventiva, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain2 ´
Received 11 November2007/Returned for modification 24 January 2008/Accepted 17 June 2008

The diagnosis of tuberculosis in developing countries still relies on direct sputum examination by lightmicroscopy, a method that is easy to perform and that is widely applied. However, because of its poor sensitivity and requirement for significant labor and training, lightmicroscopy examination detects the bacilli in only 45 to 60% of all people whose specimens are culture positive for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Therefore, new diagnostic methodsthat would enable the detection of the undiagnosed infected population and allow the early commencement of antituberculosis treatment are needed. In this work, thepotential use of mycobacterial cyan autofluorescence for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was explored. The tubercle bacilli were easily visualized as brilliantfluorescent bacilli by microscopy and were easily tracked ex vivo during macrophage infection. Assays with seeded sputum and a 96-well microplate reader fluorimeter indicated that