MAP 43525 isolated from a patient with ulcerative colitis

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570654/

Well this sure was interesting...

A few things stand out from it - especially that it does not require additional mycobactin to the culture media: Mycobactin is a way for the bacteria to remove and use iron that is normally bound to human iron binding proteins. So it has a way to get at iron.

Just keep in mind there is a big overlap between Crohn's and UC and susceptibility to mycobacteria. In UC the genes are in relation to the epithelia or lining of the colon in Crohn's they intracellular.

Will be interesting to see where this one goes.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 10/4/2015 9:27:05 PM (GMT-6)

wow! this is really interesting. I was just about to add an iron supp as I had some pretty good bleeding going on with this current flare, but now I wonder if it would just help MAP grow (assuming I have it). Now I really can't wait to get my UBiome results

I don't know, it is a bacteria, I was going to look that up and see if they list it. They break things down into several classifications.

Let's hope this goes the way of recent crohn's research: that all uc patients are found to have a MAP 43525 infection, they target treatments toward removing it. That would mean that uc is an infectious disease, like crohn's might be. That uc isn't autoimmune, rather immune response is a symptom not a cause of the infection. Prove it and cure us, I say

If memory serves correctly MAP is an elusive little bugger, only 20-something people have been identified with this particular strain of it. I doubt ubiome shows it...

It will and it won't...

Mycobacteria in general might. U-Biome uses 16S rDNA to identify the various phylums and classes as best as they can. You probably won't see the words 'mycobacteria' but you will probably see 'Actinobacteria' - so look for this heading. This is the Phylum for mycobacteria.

Now there are a lot of different species of 'actinobacteria' however and this is sort of the problem with these tests... they don't drill down specifically.

To separate and identify MAP specifically from this they would have to probe is with an IS900 primer. Professor Herman Taylor (the MAP vaccine guy) is the one that developed this identification method. The issue it seems is that this genetic sequence also can cross-identify with other mycobacteria (Avium etc). So it says yes this is mycobacteria, and MAYBE it's MAP but it could be mycobacterium avium or another mycobcacteria as well. From here they now also probe things for, or with what is called an f57 sequence. If IS900 says yes, and f57 says yes then there is a very high probability it is specifically mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis.

What these guys (in the paper) and others are saying is that this then breaks down further where the individual strains of mycobacterium avium subspecies paratbuerculosis seem to have specific genes that may alter their disease causing ability - or virulence. And they are saying that the isolates they have seem to share genes with the cattle version but slightly different. So maybe a mutated version... more specific to a human host versus a cow host.

What I leaned this week from a quick conversation was that they are also questioning the IS900 detection. There is speculation based on a few recent findings (from John Aitken in New Zealand) that the 'human' MAP might be a little different (genetically) because of the form they are in (Cell wall deficient form). So they think ultimately there will be a better and more specific way to detect them instead of IS900 or f57, and because of this, there is still a lot of discrepancy and missed findings at the moment.

Anyway - I remember Dr. Zang asked a question a while ago where he said if MAP requires mycobactin to be added to a culture in order to get them to grow - and mycobatin is NOT found in human blood - how are they capable of surviving and growing in us? This shows that this particular 'human' isolate strain does not seem to require mycobactinas long as the nutrients in the culture media are right - and this strain came from a patient with Ulcerative Colitis.

Now that does not mean in any way that it IS causing the disease, but it sure will be interesting to see where thing go with this in the near future. - And of course it's pretty darn suspicious looking given all the findings going on with MAP and genetics recently.

Of note I am told it is also isolated from Rheumatoid Arthritis patients. So they are saying they now strongly think that RA is a co-morbidity or associated condition. My family history:

Mothers side:
My grandmother - Rheumatoid Arthritis
My grandfather - Ulcerative Colitis
My mother - Rheumatoid Arthritis
Me - Crohn's-Colitis

My family doctor just to me a few weeks ago that it's the mothers side that is important really... Not sure if this is true or not, but the history on that side is there. My fathers side has none of these.

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 10/5/2015 10:08:30 AM (GMT-6)

If you're looking through your Ubiome repots this may help: I added the species and strain stuff to help others understand. I think it's a correct interpretation.

Kingdom: bacteria
Phyllum: Actinobacteria
Order: Actinomycetales
Family: Mycobacteriaceae
Genus: Mycobacterium

Species (ISO 900 and f57 postive genes): = Mycobacterium Avium Subspecies Paratuberculosis
Species (proposed revised in place of above): Son of Map? <--- temporary name for proposed new species adapted to human host (Cell wall deficient form). Currently awaiting gene sequence for identification to differentiate from cattle and other MAP.
Strain: Genetic variants of the particular species that give rise to pathogenic characteristics in specific hosts. e.g. Human Ulcerative Colitis isolate strain: MAP 43525

Simple diagram of the genetic overlaps between the two diseases www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188925/figure/F1/

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Ultimately it may just be that they make UC worse as Professor Herman Taylor says... Or it may be something more. Anyways, it was just interesting considering they isolated it from a patient with Ulcerative Colitis.

Will simply be worth keeping en eye on in the future perhaps and see if anything develops from it.

My ubiome test came back with 5% Actinomycetales but no Myco-anythings

Won't show up in Ubiome as it's from a mucosal biopsy sample - so in the tissue. Which is interesting in of itself.

Here is the nitty gritty on this MAP 43525 when it was first isolated:
www.paratuberculosis.info/images/proc11/400.pdf

Looks like they had a heck of a time even getting it grow in a lab... or even getting any to grow from IBD patients back then.

Interesting on the rod shape... Cattle MAP is most often seen as rod shaped but in John Aitken's presentation he said they believe the predominant form is actually going to be coccoid (roundish) - just that they are very, very hard to grow in culture and to see by microscope, so they are missed or not detected. Who knows if this will be the case though. However he sure does have a lot of pictures and samples of them now.

So here they find and isolate a MAP bug from a mucosal sample of a UC patient that is in the form (shape) very similar to what they find in cattle, has very similar genes to the cattle MAP, BUT the new study shows it also has some very suspicious genes that are to do with human host entry (same as MAC & TB) and not found on cattle MAP.


** There seems to be a lot of mights and maybe's though....

Post Edited (Canada Mark) : 10/5/2015 5:36:07 PM (GMT-6)