Evidence for a previously unrecognized mycobacterial endosymbiont in Acanthamoeba castellanii strain Ma (ATCC ® 50370 ™).

We describe the isolation of a mycobacterium from Acanthamoeba castellanii strain Ma (ATCC(®) 50370(™)). The mycobacterium resides within vacuoles of A. castellanii, can be cultured by routine methodologies, and is a member of the Mycobacterium avium complex.

Barcoding ciliates: a comprehensive study of 75 isolates of the genus Tetrahymena.

The mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) gene has been proposed as a DNA barcode to identify animal species. To test the applicability of the cox1 gene in identifying ciliates, 75 isolates of the genus Tetrahymena and three non-Tetrahymena ciliates that are close relatives of Tetrahymena, Colpidium campylum, Colpidium colpoda and Glaucoma chattoni, were selected. All tetrahymenines of unproblematic species could be identified to the species level using 689 bp of the cox1 sequence, with about 11 % interspecific sequence divergence.