Improved detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. bovis in African wildlife samples using cationic peptide decontamination and mycobacterial culture supplementation

In South Africa, mycobacterial culture is regarded as the gold standard for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) infection in wildlife even though it is regarded as “imperfect.” We compared a novel decontamination and mycobacterial culture technique (TiKa) to the conventional mycobacterium growth indicator tube (MGIT) system using known amounts of bacilli and clinical samples from MTBC-infected African buffaloes (Syncerus caffer), white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum), and African elephants (Loxodonta africana). Use of the TiKa-KiC decontamination agent on samples spiked with 10,000 to 10 colony forming units (cfu) of M. bovis (SB0121) and M. tuberculosis (H37Rv) had no effect on isolate recovery in culture. In contrast, decontamination with MGIT MycoPrep resulted in no growth of M. bovis samples at concentrations < 1,000 cfu and M. tuberculosis samples < 100 cfu. Subsequently, we used the TiKa system with stored clinical samples (various lymphatic tissues) collected from wildlife and paucibacillary bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, trunk washes, and endotracheal tube washes from 3 species with known MTBC infections. Overall, MTBC recovery by culture was improved significantly (p < 0.01) by using TiKa compared to conventional MGIT, with 54 of 57 positive specimens versus 25 of 57 positive specimens, respectively. The TiKa mycobacterial growth system appears to significantly enhance the recovery of MTBC members from tissue and paucibacillary respiratory samples collected from African buffaloes, African elephants, and white rhinoceros. Moreover, the TiKa system may improve success of MTBC culture from various sample types previously deemed unculturable from other species.