Domnic Otieno Mijele¹ , Isaac Ltajewa Lekolool¹ , Francis Muriuki Gakuya¹ , Irmgard Moser⁴ , Kazwala Rudovick⁵ , Otiende Moses¹ , Tanner Manfred¹

1. Kenya Wildlife Service, Veterinary Services Department, P.O Box 40241-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
2. Institute for Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Department of Veterinary Science, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Veterinärstr. 13, 80539 München, Germany
3. Friedrich-Loeffler Institut, Südufer 10, 17493 Greifswald-Isle of Riems, Germany
4. Friedrich-Loeffler Institut, Naumburger Strasse 96a, 07743 Jena, Germany
5. Sokoine University of Agriculture P.O Box 3021, Morogoro, Tanzania
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Molecular Ecology and Conservation, 2014, Vol. 4, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2014.04.0002
Received: 24 Jan., 2014    Accepted: 17 Feb., 2014    Published: 26 Jun., 2014

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mijele et al., 2014, Molecular Isolation of Pathogenic Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria in Free Ranging Migratory Wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) and Cattle of Masai Mara, Kenya, International Journal of Ecology and Conservation, Vol.4, No.2 7-14 (doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2014.04.0002)

The genus Mycobacterium consists of the members of the Mycobacterium (M.) tuberculosis complex (MTC), non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and M. leprae. MTC and some NTM organisms cause tuberculosis or tuberculosis-like diseases in humans and other animal species respectively. In Masai Mara conservation area in Kenya, a potential interface between wildlife, livestock and humans is existing due to frequent wildlife and livestock movements and interactions. This study proved the presence of various NTM species in free ranging migratory wildebeests wildebeests (Connochaetes taurinus) and cattle (Bos indicus) through culture, isolation, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing techniques using16S rRNA genes followed by hsp65 gene to confirm the results. The study revealed the presence of M. kansasii sub-species VI in 4/60 (6.7%) wildebeests and in 10/89 (11.2%) cattle. One of the wildebeests and 3/89 (3.4%) cattle had M. lentiflavum. M. gordonae was isolated from only one wildebeest while M. intracellulare was detected in 1/89 (1.1%) cattle. No MTC organisms were isolated. The DNA extracts of the isolated mycobacteria were sequence-analysed and published in Genbank with accession numbers assigned. The occurrence of NTM organisms in free ranging migratory wildebeests and cattle may pose a great risk of human infection through consumption of cattle and other livestock or bush-meat products.

Wildebeests; M. kansasii; M. lentiflavum; M. intracellulare; Hsp65 gene; 16S rRNA gene