Dear Malcolm,
You said: <<the whole subject area of cell wall deficient forms is confusing - at least to me. I've just started reading Dr. Mattman's book, don't know if the quote Nancy pointed you to is from the book or someone's precis. What does seem clear is that most detection methodologies are still based on "accepted standards" and may well miss some forms - if seen, considered 'debris' rather than identifiable pleomorphs, and often not seen at all. Whether a PCR would be adequate standalone technology for detection - - - ? Could you give me some references on detection and treatment protocols and general enlightenment on CWD forms and filtrable pleomorphs?>> Are you familiar with this site? http://www.professorenderlein.com/ Some articles: -- Human choriogonadotropin-like material in bacteria of different species: electron microscopy and immunocytochemical studies with monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies. Acevedo HF, Pardo M, Campbell-Acevedo E, Domingue GJ. J Gen Microbiol. 1987 Mar;133 ( Pt 3):783-91. -- Bacteriologic investigation and histologic observations of variably acid-fast bacteria in three cases of cutaneous Kaposi's sarcoma. Cantwell AR Jr. Growth. 1981 Summer;45(2):79-89. -- Identification of cell wall deficient forms of M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis in paraffin embedded tissues from animals with Johne's disease by in situ hybridization. Hulten K, Karttunen TJ, El-Zimaity HM, Naser SA, Collins MT, Graham DY, El-Zaatari FA.; J Microbiol Methods 2000 Oct;42(2):185-95 Department of Medicine, Veterans Affairs Medical Center (111D), 2002 Holcombe Blvd., Houston, TX 77030, USA. ABSTRACT M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis (M. paratuberculosis) is the causative agent of Johne's disease (JD) in ruminants leading to enormous economical losses in dairy and meat industries worldwide. During the subclinical stage of the disease, the infected animals are difficult if not impossible to detect by the available diagnostic tests including the PCR based ones. Although only considered an animal pathogen, cell wall deficient (CWD) forms of M. paratuberculosis have been isolated from patients with sarcoidosis and Crohn's disease (idiopathic diseases) in humans. Hence, the CWD form of this organism has been suspected to play a role in the pathogenesis of these diseases by persisting in the affected tissues and triggering a localized immune response and pathology. Differentiating between the CWD and acid-fast forms of this organism may lead to the determination of whether the CWD form is the pathogenic form in the subclinical cases of JD in animals and/or the etiologic agent for the above human diseases. To localize such organisms in tissue sections, CWD forms of mycobacteria were prepared in vitro and injected into beef cubes which were then formalin fixed and paraffin embedded. An in situ hybridization (ISH) technique, combined with the IS900 M. paratuberculosis-specific probe labeled with digoxigenin, was developed for the detection of nucleic acids specifically from the CWD forms but not their acid-fast forms in tissue sections. Specificity was confirmed by the negative finding with an irrelevant probe and with control tissue preparations containing CWD cells of related mycobacteria and unrelated organisms. This ISH procedure provides a way to distinguish between the acid-fast and CWD forms of M. paratuberculosis and to localize them in tissue sections. ISH may prove useful to evaluate the significance of CWD forms of M. paratuberculosis in the pathogenesis of JD, Crohn's disease and sarcoidosis. -- http://www.bioresourceinc.com/articles/perspective.html Regards, Catherine . -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. Instructions for unsubscribing may be found at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com>