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Infection and Immunity, July 2001, p. 4639-4646, Vol. 69, No. 7
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.7.4639-4646.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Granulomatous Skin Lesions in Moray Eels Caused by a Novel Mycobacterium Species Related to Mycobacterium triplex

Lawrence H. Herbst,1,2,* Sylvia F. Costa,3 Louis M. Weiss,1,3 Linda K. Johnson,1,2 John Bartell,4 Raymond Davis,5 Michael Walsh,5 and Michael Levi1

Department of Pathology,1 Institute for Animal Studies,2 and Department of Medicine,3 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461; MIDI Labs Inc., Newark, Delaware 197134; and SeaWorld Adventure Park, Orlando, Florida 328215

Received 27 December 2000/Returned for modification 27 February 2001/Accepted 29 March 2001

An outbreak of granulomatous dermatitis was investigated in a captive population of moray eels. The affected eels had florid skin nodules concentrated around the head and trunk. Histopathological examination revealed extensive granulomatous inflammation within the dermis and subcutaneous fascial plane between the fat and axial musculature. Acid-fast rods were detected within the smallest lesions, which were presumably the ones that had developed earliest. Eventually, after several months of incubation at room temperature, a very slowly growing acid-fast organism was isolated. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene identified it as a Mycobacterium species closely related (0.59% divergence) to M. triplex, an SAV mycobacterium. Intradermal inoculation of healthy green moray eels with this organism reliably reproduced the lesion. Experimentally induced granulomatous dermatitis appeared within 2 weeks of inoculation and slowly but progressively expanded during the 2 months of the experiment. Live organisms were recovered from these lesions at all time points, fulfilling Koch's postulates for this bacterium. In a retrospective study of tissues collected between 1993 and 1999 from five spontaneous disease cases, acid-fast rods were consistently found within lesions, and a nested PCR for the rRNA gene also demonstrated the presence of mycobacteria within affected tissues.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute for Animal Studies, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave., Bronx, NY 10461. Phone: (718) 430-8553. Fax: (718) 430-8556. E-mail: herbst{at}aecom.yu.edu.

Infection and Immunity, July 2001, p. 4639-4646, Vol. 69, No. 7
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.7.4639-4646.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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