Slow-Growing Mycobacteria

Abstract

Mycobacteria are gram-positive organisms and are divided into fast- and slow-growing species. The latter group contains the major human and animal pathogens, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium bovis as well as Mycobacterium paratuberculosis and members of the Mycobacterium avium complex. Their characteristics include complex cell walls, slow growth, clumping and inefficient genetic transfer systems. These characteristics have placed significant limitations on genetic manipulation of these species. The development of efficient transformation methods using electroporation has significantly improved and expanded the types of genetic approaches available for analysing mycobacterial genes. In particular, more efficient transformation efficiencies have improved the likelihood of:

• Reliably producing recombinants

• Obtaining high quality representative libraries

• Performing homologous recombination strategies with suicide plasmids.