- Email: [email protected]
Emerging or re-emerging: that is the question
586
Forum
TRENDS in Microbiology Vol.10 No.12 December 2002
(amebiasis and babesiosis) and bacterial infections, the latter covering organisms from Coxiella burnetii, Borrelia and Mycoplasma pneumoniae to Clostridium difficile and Staphylococcus aureus. I made a beeline for the chapter on small-colony variants (SCVs) of S. aureus as emerging pathogens. This review, as with most chapters in previous volumes, brought me right up to date in ten pages of text on the topic of SCVs. SCVs are not a mainline topic in discussions of staphylococcal pathogenicity. Indeed, they are rarely, if ever, mentioned in textbook chapters on S. aureus. Thus this review serves an important function as a starting point reference. The chapter on West Nile virus meningoencephalitis in New York City caught my eye as this had received extensive news coverage in 1999. The emergence of this virus in the Western hemisphere shows how vulnerable a population can be to an imported disease threat. Lady luck played its part in New York City because an astute infectious disease doctor reported her concerns to a public health agency. The way in which this viral emergency was handled by the city health authorities provides interesting reading, including the free distribution of >400 000 cans of mosquito repellent! Talkington et al. provide an incisive chapter on M. pneumoniae infections, covering topics from respiratory tract infections to the pathophysiology of infection and extrapulmonary infections. They say ignorance is bliss – until I read this article, I wasn’t aware that M. pneumoniae caused infections other than atypical pneumonia! Likewise, I updated my education on new species in the Lyme disease group of Borrelia, their hard tick vectors and common reservoirs as well as ‘erythema migrans-like rash illness’ versus Lyme disease. Indeed, after I had read the chapter on Mycobacterium ulcerans infection and learned that Buruli ulcer disease, a necrotizing ulceration of the skin, is the third most common mycobacterial disease after tuberculosis and leprosy among immunocompetent people in the tropics, I realized the real need for this series of volumes published by ASM. There are some gory coloured plates of this infection that emphasize the eventual surgical treatment strategy. http://tim.trends.com
Apart from the chapters on bioterrorism, the other chapter in this book that deals with a broad-ranging topic is that on Water-Transmissible Diseases and Hemodialysis. Given that >200 000 new patients start on renal replacement modalities each year, this chapter is a very valuable contribution for all doctors who are dealing with renal disease. The authors provide valuable insight into the potential hazards for haemodialysis patients of source water contamination and improper water treatment. Those who have read the first four volumes in this series will not be disappointed with this latest volume. The editors are to be congratulated on encouraging their authors to write in a clear, simple and highly readable way to get the punchlines across. This volume emphasizes yet again the true nature of the ‘global village in which we live’ and the emerging and re-emerging infections that ‘we cannot afford to be ignorant of or complacent about’. Cyril J. Smyth Dept of Microbiology, Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland. e-mail: [email protected]
Emerging or re-emerging: that is the question Emerging Bacterial Pathogens (Contributions to Microbiology Vol. 8) edited by I. Mühldorfer and K.P. Schäfer S. Karger AG, 2001. $195.75 (hbk) (xiv + 213 pages) ISBN 3 805 57218 2
As pointed out in the preface of this book, emerging diseases can be newly recognized, of new aetiology compared with past attribution, or be re-emerging after a period of low incidence. Unlike the Emerging Infections series published by ASM Press, the coverage of this book is restricted to bacterial pathogens. That said, the spectrum is broad. Some, for example, Helicobacter pylori, the chlamydiae and Streptococcus pyogenes, have been covered in the ASM series,
whereas others merit the timely coverage in this volume, for example, legionellosis, given the outbreaks during the past summer in the UK, and Campylobacter jejuni, or are unexpected, such as Gram-negative plant pathogenic bacteria. This book is an excellent read for any bacteriologist and infectious disease clinician as it provides a mixture of the familiar, the new and the changing images of some infections. I found several chapters particularly interesting. Schneider and Gross review Bordetella pertussis, recent epidemics of whooping cough in countries with high vaccination rates, the contribution vaccination might possibly make to antigenic variation or drift in this bacterium, and the emergence of pertussis-like disease in humans caused by other bordetellae such as Bordetella holmesii. I have to admit that after almost 40 years as a research bacteriologist I had never heard of Whipple’s disease, let alone its causative agent Tropheryma whippelii. With less than 12 new cases worldwide per year it is hardly the topic of major symposia or gatherings of world experts! However, in one part of Switzerland, 17 cases were identified in a five-year period, indicating that the disease could be under-recognized worldwide. This bacterium is taxonomically related to actinomycetes. The chapter covers the history of the disease, the organism, laboratory diagnosis and molecular variants. No specific virulence factors have yet been identified. Human carriage and host factors determining susceptibility to infection are also discussed. The review by Rosengarten and colleagues on mycoplasmas is interesting and provocative. Apart from a few well-characterized pathogens like Mycoplasma pneumoniae, most of us have been taught to think of mycoplasmas as commensals. My knowledge of the names of Mycoplasma species as emerging and re-emerging pathogens of humans, livestock and wildlife has increased tremendously by reading this review. Specific selected examples of these mycoplasmal diseases are covered. I found the section on Mycoplasma fermentans in AIDS succinct and useful and the section on carriage of mycoplasmas in animals as possible ‘zoonotic pools’ for inadvertent human infection thought-provoking.
0966-842X/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Forum
TRENDS in Microbiology Vol.10 No.12 December 2002
I will no longer regard these bacteria as interesting sidelines in discussing bacterial diseases with students. The very first chapter I read in this book was the one on Gram-negative pathogens of plants. While being familiar with genera such as Xanthomonas, Erwinia, Agrobacterium and Pseudomonas as pathogens of plants, I found it useful to indulge myself on cell wall-degrading enzymes, exopolysaccharides, phytotoxins, phytohormones and other basic aspects of the pathogenicity of these organisms such as their type III secretion systems, so familiar to one steeped in Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella
and Yersinia. Although this chapter won’t provide the research scientist in this field with a lot that is new to them, it does provide a succinct overview of this important group of bacterial pathogens with several similarities to human and animal pathogens. The final chapter of this book is a short overview of modern technologies in biology and drug research – genomics, proteomics and transcriptomics. The chapter included two technologies new to my vocabulary, namely, ‘pharmacogenomics’, the linking of genome-sequencing data with metabolic and physiological data in understanding drug activity, and ‘bioholonics’ (or was it
587
meant to read bioholomics?), the concerted use of ‘omic’ technology to obtain a holistic view on biological interactions! This book sets out to provide short reviews on bacterial pathogens representative of emerging infectious diseases. As such, it is not only educational but also provides lots of useful details for medical students, research scientists and biologists alike. Cyril J. Smyth Dept of Microbiology, Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland. e-mail: [email protected]
Trends in Microbiology would like to thank the following people for their help and guidance during 2002 A. Aguzzi S. Akira R.A. Alm J.B. Anderson N. Andrews A. Aronson Y. Av-Gay C. Baron P.M. Bavoil A.S. Bayer S. Beatson D.E. Berg J.M. Bergelson N. Blackstone B. Bloom L. Bossi S. Brooker M. Brown H. Bruessow R.C. Brunham K.L. Buchanan K. Bush G.I. Byrne A. Casadevall J.M. Casasnovas M. Cashel T. Cavalier-Smith M.S. Chapman S.K. Chapman P.J. Christie D. Conway G.R. Cornelis E. de Jong E.F. DeLong R.W. Doms J. Donelson B. Dowds L. Dreyfus D. Durocher
D.I. Edwards S.D. Ehrlich A. Eisenstark P. Englund K. Ersfeld S. Falkow N. Ferguson J.J. Ferretti V. Fischetti B.B. Finlay S. Forst S.A. Frank M.Y. Galperin W. Gibson I. Ginsburg W. Goldman N.A.R. Gow M.W. Gray B.M. Greenwood B. Grenfell P.C. Hanna K. Hantke K. Haynes J. Heitman J. Helmann I.R. Henderson R.F. Hoekstra D.W. Holden A.L. Hughes G.M. Ihler P. Jenks C.I. Kado D.K.R. Karaolis S. Kaufmann R. Keane D.G. Kehres K.S. Kim H-D. Klenk L.M. Kohn
http://tim.trends.com
E.V. Koonin U. Koszinowski R.J. Kuhn D.H. Kwon B.F. Lang J.G. Lawrence B.R. Levin R. Liddington D. Lilic Y. Lin H-G. Ljunggren K.P. Locher J.K. Lodge M. Mackinnon M.J. Mahan L. Margolis G.B. Martin J.D. McKinney T.F. Meyer S.I. Miller M. Mock A. Moir C. Moran A. Moretta A.W. Munro X. Nassif S. Nee G. Nemerow H. Nikaido D. O’Callaghan L. O’Neill F. Odds M.B.A. Oldstone A.D.M.E. Osterhaus S. Ottonello M. Pallen T. Parkinson N. Pfanner P. Rainey
A. Read R.J. Redfield M. Riley M.A. Riley C.R. Roy E. Rubin J. Rucker P. Sansonetti C. Sasakawa N.J. Saunders R. Schauer O. Schneewind S. Sheikh J.L. Shenep C. Shuman D.G.E. Smith R.M. Steinman D.S. Stephens A.C. Steven G.D. Stormo S. Suerbaum M.S. Swanson K. Tate D. Taylor Z. Toossi E. Ullu P.D. van Helden J.A. Vazquez-Boland G. Velicer M. Virji U. Vogel R. Wagner M. Waldor V. Waters R.G. Webster R. Weiss P. Williams J. Woods J. Zehr
Forum
TRENDS in Microbiology Vol.10 No.12 December 2002
(amebiasis and babesiosis) and bacterial infections, the latter covering organisms from Coxiella burnetii, Borrelia and Mycoplasma pneumoniae to Clostridium difficile and Staphylococcus aureus. I made a beeline for the chapter on small-colony variants (SCVs) of S. aureus as emerging pathogens. This review, as with most chapters in previous volumes, brought me right up to date in ten pages of text on the topic of SCVs. SCVs are not a mainline topic in discussions of staphylococcal pathogenicity. Indeed, they are rarely, if ever, mentioned in textbook chapters on S. aureus. Thus this review serves an important function as a starting point reference. The chapter on West Nile virus meningoencephalitis in New York City caught my eye as this had received extensive news coverage in 1999. The emergence of this virus in the Western hemisphere shows how vulnerable a population can be to an imported disease threat. Lady luck played its part in New York City because an astute infectious disease doctor reported her concerns to a public health agency. The way in which this viral emergency was handled by the city health authorities provides interesting reading, including the free distribution of >400 000 cans of mosquito repellent! Talkington et al. provide an incisive chapter on M. pneumoniae infections, covering topics from respiratory tract infections to the pathophysiology of infection and extrapulmonary infections. They say ignorance is bliss – until I read this article, I wasn’t aware that M. pneumoniae caused infections other than atypical pneumonia! Likewise, I updated my education on new species in the Lyme disease group of Borrelia, their hard tick vectors and common reservoirs as well as ‘erythema migrans-like rash illness’ versus Lyme disease. Indeed, after I had read the chapter on Mycobacterium ulcerans infection and learned that Buruli ulcer disease, a necrotizing ulceration of the skin, is the third most common mycobacterial disease after tuberculosis and leprosy among immunocompetent people in the tropics, I realized the real need for this series of volumes published by ASM. There are some gory coloured plates of this infection that emphasize the eventual surgical treatment strategy. http://tim.trends.com
Apart from the chapters on bioterrorism, the other chapter in this book that deals with a broad-ranging topic is that on Water-Transmissible Diseases and Hemodialysis. Given that >200 000 new patients start on renal replacement modalities each year, this chapter is a very valuable contribution for all doctors who are dealing with renal disease. The authors provide valuable insight into the potential hazards for haemodialysis patients of source water contamination and improper water treatment. Those who have read the first four volumes in this series will not be disappointed with this latest volume. The editors are to be congratulated on encouraging their authors to write in a clear, simple and highly readable way to get the punchlines across. This volume emphasizes yet again the true nature of the ‘global village in which we live’ and the emerging and re-emerging infections that ‘we cannot afford to be ignorant of or complacent about’. Cyril J. Smyth Dept of Microbiology, Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland. e-mail: [email protected]
Emerging or re-emerging: that is the question Emerging Bacterial Pathogens (Contributions to Microbiology Vol. 8) edited by I. Mühldorfer and K.P. Schäfer S. Karger AG, 2001. $195.75 (hbk) (xiv + 213 pages) ISBN 3 805 57218 2
As pointed out in the preface of this book, emerging diseases can be newly recognized, of new aetiology compared with past attribution, or be re-emerging after a period of low incidence. Unlike the Emerging Infections series published by ASM Press, the coverage of this book is restricted to bacterial pathogens. That said, the spectrum is broad. Some, for example, Helicobacter pylori, the chlamydiae and Streptococcus pyogenes, have been covered in the ASM series,
whereas others merit the timely coverage in this volume, for example, legionellosis, given the outbreaks during the past summer in the UK, and Campylobacter jejuni, or are unexpected, such as Gram-negative plant pathogenic bacteria. This book is an excellent read for any bacteriologist and infectious disease clinician as it provides a mixture of the familiar, the new and the changing images of some infections. I found several chapters particularly interesting. Schneider and Gross review Bordetella pertussis, recent epidemics of whooping cough in countries with high vaccination rates, the contribution vaccination might possibly make to antigenic variation or drift in this bacterium, and the emergence of pertussis-like disease in humans caused by other bordetellae such as Bordetella holmesii. I have to admit that after almost 40 years as a research bacteriologist I had never heard of Whipple’s disease, let alone its causative agent Tropheryma whippelii. With less than 12 new cases worldwide per year it is hardly the topic of major symposia or gatherings of world experts! However, in one part of Switzerland, 17 cases were identified in a five-year period, indicating that the disease could be under-recognized worldwide. This bacterium is taxonomically related to actinomycetes. The chapter covers the history of the disease, the organism, laboratory diagnosis and molecular variants. No specific virulence factors have yet been identified. Human carriage and host factors determining susceptibility to infection are also discussed. The review by Rosengarten and colleagues on mycoplasmas is interesting and provocative. Apart from a few well-characterized pathogens like Mycoplasma pneumoniae, most of us have been taught to think of mycoplasmas as commensals. My knowledge of the names of Mycoplasma species as emerging and re-emerging pathogens of humans, livestock and wildlife has increased tremendously by reading this review. Specific selected examples of these mycoplasmal diseases are covered. I found the section on Mycoplasma fermentans in AIDS succinct and useful and the section on carriage of mycoplasmas in animals as possible ‘zoonotic pools’ for inadvertent human infection thought-provoking.
0966-842X/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Forum
TRENDS in Microbiology Vol.10 No.12 December 2002
I will no longer regard these bacteria as interesting sidelines in discussing bacterial diseases with students. The very first chapter I read in this book was the one on Gram-negative pathogens of plants. While being familiar with genera such as Xanthomonas, Erwinia, Agrobacterium and Pseudomonas as pathogens of plants, I found it useful to indulge myself on cell wall-degrading enzymes, exopolysaccharides, phytotoxins, phytohormones and other basic aspects of the pathogenicity of these organisms such as their type III secretion systems, so familiar to one steeped in Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella
and Yersinia. Although this chapter won’t provide the research scientist in this field with a lot that is new to them, it does provide a succinct overview of this important group of bacterial pathogens with several similarities to human and animal pathogens. The final chapter of this book is a short overview of modern technologies in biology and drug research – genomics, proteomics and transcriptomics. The chapter included two technologies new to my vocabulary, namely, ‘pharmacogenomics’, the linking of genome-sequencing data with metabolic and physiological data in understanding drug activity, and ‘bioholonics’ (or was it
587
meant to read bioholomics?), the concerted use of ‘omic’ technology to obtain a holistic view on biological interactions! This book sets out to provide short reviews on bacterial pathogens representative of emerging infectious diseases. As such, it is not only educational but also provides lots of useful details for medical students, research scientists and biologists alike. Cyril J. Smyth Dept of Microbiology, Moyne Institute of Preventive Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland. e-mail: [email protected]
Trends in Microbiology would like to thank the following people for their help and guidance during 2002 A. Aguzzi S. Akira R.A. Alm J.B. Anderson N. Andrews A. Aronson Y. Av-Gay C. Baron P.M. Bavoil A.S. Bayer S. Beatson D.E. Berg J.M. Bergelson N. Blackstone B. Bloom L. Bossi S. Brooker M. Brown H. Bruessow R.C. Brunham K.L. Buchanan K. Bush G.I. Byrne A. Casadevall J.M. Casasnovas M. Cashel T. Cavalier-Smith M.S. Chapman S.K. Chapman P.J. Christie D. Conway G.R. Cornelis E. de Jong E.F. DeLong R.W. Doms J. Donelson B. Dowds L. Dreyfus D. Durocher
D.I. Edwards S.D. Ehrlich A. Eisenstark P. Englund K. Ersfeld S. Falkow N. Ferguson J.J. Ferretti V. Fischetti B.B. Finlay S. Forst S.A. Frank M.Y. Galperin W. Gibson I. Ginsburg W. Goldman N.A.R. Gow M.W. Gray B.M. Greenwood B. Grenfell P.C. Hanna K. Hantke K. Haynes J. Heitman J. Helmann I.R. Henderson R.F. Hoekstra D.W. Holden A.L. Hughes G.M. Ihler P. Jenks C.I. Kado D.K.R. Karaolis S. Kaufmann R. Keane D.G. Kehres K.S. Kim H-D. Klenk L.M. Kohn
http://tim.trends.com
E.V. Koonin U. Koszinowski R.J. Kuhn D.H. Kwon B.F. Lang J.G. Lawrence B.R. Levin R. Liddington D. Lilic Y. Lin H-G. Ljunggren K.P. Locher J.K. Lodge M. Mackinnon M.J. Mahan L. Margolis G.B. Martin J.D. McKinney T.F. Meyer S.I. Miller M. Mock A. Moir C. Moran A. Moretta A.W. Munro X. Nassif S. Nee G. Nemerow H. Nikaido D. O’Callaghan L. O’Neill F. Odds M.B.A. Oldstone A.D.M.E. Osterhaus S. Ottonello M. Pallen T. Parkinson N. Pfanner P. Rainey
A. Read R.J. Redfield M. Riley M.A. Riley C.R. Roy E. Rubin J. Rucker P. Sansonetti C. Sasakawa N.J. Saunders R. Schauer O. Schneewind S. Sheikh J.L. Shenep C. Shuman D.G.E. Smith R.M. Steinman D.S. Stephens A.C. Steven G.D. Stormo S. Suerbaum M.S. Swanson K. Tate D. Taylor Z. Toossi E. Ullu P.D. van Helden J.A. Vazquez-Boland G. Velicer M. Virji U. Vogel R. Wagner M. Waldor V. Waters R.G. Webster R. Weiss P. Williams J. Woods J. Zehr