FAS Abstracts 2004 Meeting Page

Medical Sciences (MED): MED-8

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Detection of Mycobacterium avium subsp.  paratuberculosis DNA in blood from Crohn’s disease patients.  G. GHOBRIAL, G. MAHARAJA, and S.A. NASER.  Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816.  Seventy EDTA-blood samples were collected from 35 subjects representing 18 CD patients and 17 non-CD controls. Using direct nested PCR, two different laboratories concurred in the detection of M. avium in 2 CD blood samples and none in the non-CD controls including Ulcerative Colitis (UC). By either center alone, M. avium DNA was detected in 4/18 (22%) of CD patients compared to 3/17 (18%) of non-CD controls. Of the three MAP-positive non-CD controls, two were from UC patients. Sequencing of amplified target DNA confirmed the presence of IS900 derived DNA sequence in tissue.. Following a few weeks of incubation, MAP was isolated by culture from 3/4 of CD samples that were positive by direct PCR.  All non-CD samples remained negative by culture.