Fazel Pourahmad and Mostafa Nemati
Mycobacteriosis is a progressive disease of a wide range of wild and captive marine and freshwater fish species. Phenotypical methods for identifying mycobacteria, such as acid fast staining and biochemical tests, are neither specific nor sensitive for identifying mycobacteria to the species level. The aim of this study was to assess the use of sodium dodecyl sulphate- polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) for the identification of different aquatic mycobacteria species. The SDS-PAGE of whole cell protein of 54 mycobacterial strains was determined. Strains included 3 reference stains and 51 field isolates. All strains had major band patterns between 32 and 90 kDa (kilo Dalton) and few bands were seen above 90 kDA. There were no differences between the band profiles of M. marinum isolates compared with those of the M. marinum reference strain; however, differences in 2 or 3 bands were observed in 6 isolates of M. fortuitum. As for M. chelonae isolates, only 1 isolate showed difference in 3 bands in comparison with that of the reference strain. The results of this study suggest that SDS-PAGE can be a useful method for characterization of both slowly growing and rapidly growing mycobacteria in clinical laboratories. This technique does not require expensive equipment and visual examining of bands patterns is adequate for differentiation of aquatic mycobacteria especially when the reference strains are included in each run.
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