“Mycobacterium mephinesia”, a Mycobacterium terrae complex species of clinical interest isolated in French Polynesia
Authors: Marc Lévy
Michel Drancourt
May Khoder
Michael Phelippeau
Jamal Saad
Didier Musso
Journal: Scientific Reports (2019)
Discipline: Multidisciplinary
Keywords: Tobacco smoker; Chronic bronchitis; Mycobacterium virginiense; Mycobacterium terrae complex; Mycobacterium mephinesia
Affiliations: Aix-Marseille Univ., IRD, MEPHI, IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France., Cabinet de Pneumologie de Taravao, Tahiti, Polynésie française, France., Laboratoire de Bactériologie, Centre Hospitalier de la Polynésie française, Pirae, Tahiti, Polynésie française, France., Aix-Marseille Univ., IRD, VITROME, Institut Louis Malardé, IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France., Aix-Marseille Univ., IRD, MEPHI, IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France. .

Abstract:  A 59-year-old tobacco smoker male with chronic bronchitis living in Taravao, French Polynesia, Pacific, presented with a two-year growing nodule in the middle lobe of the right lung. A guided bronchoalveolar lavage inoculated onto Löwenstein-Jensen medium yielded colonies of a rapidly-growing non-chromogenic mycobacterium designed as isolate P7213. The isolate could not be identified using routine matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry and phenotypic and probe-hybridization techniques and yielded 100% and 97% sequence similarity with the respective 16S rRNA and rpoB gene sequences of Mycobacterium virginiense in the Mycobacterium terrae complex. Electron microscopy showed a 1.15 µm long and 0.38 µm large bacillus which was in vitro susceptible to rifampicin, rifabutin, ethambutol, isoniazid, doxycycline and kanamycin. Its 4,511,948-bp draft genome exhibited a 67.6% G + C content with 4,153 coding-protein genes and 87 predicted RNA genes. Genome sequence-derived DNA-DNA hybridization, OrthoANI and pangenome analysis confirmed isolate P7213 was representative of a new species in the M. terrae complex. We named this species "Mycobacterium mephinesia". 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 In this paper, the authors mentioned that the patient provide a consent before to be recruited in the study. The patient having a tobacco issue and perform the study with different type of test. The Patient lived in French Polynesia. This paper mentioned an approval under the IHU ethics committee no. 2016-025. We can also note that several other papers mentioned the same ethics approval number. Usually, one ethical approval number is attached to one protocol. In the other paper, we can note : different type of bacteria, patients in another country for a different indication (tuberculosis), ... It should be in the public interest to understand how a same ethical approval number for a protocol can cover so many different type of situations. - [Extended spectrum of antibiotic susceptibility for tuberculosis, Djibouti] - [u201cMycobacterium mephinesiau201d, a Mycobacterium terrae complex species of clinical interest isolated in French Polynesia] - [Pulmonary Isolation of Multidrug resistant u201cMycobacterium simulansu201d and Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a patient in the Horn of Africa] - [FISH and PNA FISH for the diagnosis of Q fever endocarditis and vascular infections.] - [Fluorescence in situ hybridization, a complementary molecular tool for the clinical diagnosis of infectious diseases by intracellular and fastidious bacteria] - [Fluorescent in situ hybridization can be used as a complementary assay for the diagnosis of Tropheryma whipplei infection] ,