Environmental risk of nontuberculous mycobacterial infection: Strategies for advancing methodology

Rachel A Mercaldo; Julia E Marshall; Gerard A Cangelosi; Maura Donohue; Joseph O Falkinham 3rd; Noah Fierer; Joshua P French; Matthew J Gebert; Jennifer R Honda; Ettie M Lipner; Theodore K Marras; Kozo Morimoto; Max Salfinger; Janet Stout; Rachel Thomson; D Rebecca Prevots

doi:10.1016/j.tube.2023.102305

Environmental risk of nontuberculous mycobacterial infection: Strategies for advancing methodology

Tuberculosis (Edinb). 2023 Mar:139:102305. doi: 10.1016/j.tube.2023.102305. Epub 2023 Jan 10.

Authors

Rachel A Mercaldo¹, Julia E Marshall², Gerard A Cangelosi³, Maura Donohue⁴, Joseph O Falkinham 3rd⁵, Noah Fierer⁶, Joshua P French⁷, Matthew J Gebert⁸, Jennifer R Honda⁹, Ettie M Lipner¹⁰, Theodore K Marras¹¹, Kozo Morimoto¹², Max Salfinger¹³, Janet Stout¹⁴, Rachel Thomson¹⁵, D Rebecca Prevots¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Division of Intramural Research, Epidemiology and Population Studies Unit, NIAID, NIH, Rockville, MD, USA. Electronic address: rachel.mercaldo@nih.gov.
² Division of Intramural Research, Epidemiology and Population Studies Unit, NIAID, NIH, Rockville, MD, USA. Electronic address: julia.marshall@nih.gov.
³ Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. Electronic address: gcang@uw.edu.
⁴ United States Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response, Cincinnati, OH, USA. Electronic address: donohue.maura@epa.gov.
⁵ Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. Electronic address: jofiii@vt.edu.
⁶ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. Electronic address: noah.fierer@colorado.edu.
⁷ Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA. Electronic address: joshua.french@ucdenver.edu.
⁸ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. Electronic address: matthew.gebert@colorado.edu.
⁹ Center for Genes, Environment, and Health, National Jewish Health, Denver, CO, USA. Electronic address: HondaJ@njhealth.org.
¹⁰ Division of Intramural Research, Epidemiology and Population Studies Unit, NIAID, NIH, Rockville, MD, USA. Electronic address: ettie.lipner@nih.gov.
¹¹ Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and University Health Network, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: ted.marras@uhn.ca.
¹² Division of Clinical Research, Fukujuji Hospital, Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: morimotok@fukujuji.org.
¹³ College of Public Health & Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA. Electronic address: max@usf.edu.
¹⁴ Special Pathogens Laboratory, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Electronic address: jstout@specialpathogenslab.com.
¹⁵ Gallipoli Medical Research Institute & Greenslopes Clinical School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Electronic address: r.thomson@uq.edu.au.
¹⁶ Division of Intramural Research, Epidemiology and Population Studies Unit, NIAID, NIH, Rockville, MD, USA. Electronic address: rprevots@nih.gov.

Abstract

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases organized a symposium in June 2022, to facilitate discussion of the environmental risks for nontuberculous mycobacteria exposure and disease. The expert researchers presented recent studies and identified numerous research gaps. This report summarizes the discussion and identifies six major areas of future research related to culture-based and culture independent laboratory methods, alternate culture media and culturing conditions, frameworks for standardized laboratory methods, improved environmental sampling strategies, validation of exposure measures, and availability of high-quality spatiotemporal data.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural

MeSH terms

Culture Media
Humans
Mycobacterium Infections, Nontuberculous* / microbiology
Mycobacterium tuberculosis*
Nontuberculous Mycobacteria
Specimen Handling

Substances

Culture Media

Grants and funding

Z99 AI999999/ImNIH/Intramural NIH HHS/United States