The production of a new extracellular putative long-chain saturated polyester by smooth variants of Mycobacterium vaccae interferes with Th1-cytokine production.

Mycobacterium vaccae is of major pharmaceutical interest as an immunotherapeutic agent. Although M. vaccae 15483 ATCC(T) strain displays smooth and rough colonial morphologies on solid culture media, it is not known in which conditions M.