A new text is needed for the mycobacteria because the prevalence of disease caused by the environmental potentially pathogenic mycobacteria is increasing. This increase is due to a number of factors. Host factors contribute to an increasing population of individuals more susceptible to mycobacterial infection. For example, the aging of the human population and the increasing frequency of immunosuppressed individuals as a result of infection (e.g. HIV), chemotherapy, and transplant-associated immunosuppression are all factors leading to increased susceptibility of infection with environment derived mycobacteria. Moreover, the role of mycobacteria as triggers in different autoimmune diseases is more and more evident. It is highly probable that peptidoglycans, lipoglycans, lipoproteins, heat shock proteins and some other structures from the mycobacterial cell wall,participate in different pathways of non-specific inflammatory reactions in humans, namely those with a specific genetic disposition. In such events mycobacteria in drinking water and food, even devitalized, have to be considered as a public health risk.
Second, human-engineered systems such as drinking water distribution systems are creating a habitat for the selection and proliferation of the potentially pathogenic mycobacteria. In as much as drinking water brings together overlapping habitats of both mycobacteria and humans and animals, a review of mycobacterial ecology is timely. The ecology of mycobacteria helps to understand the circulation of mycobacteria into the respective disciplines such as epidemiology, epizootology, immunology, environmental ecology, animal husbandry and environment conservation.
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