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.

在南非，分枝杆菌培养被认为是检测野生动物结核分枝杆菌复合群 (MTBC) 感染的金标准，尽管它被认为是“不完美的”。我们使用已知数量的杆菌和来自 MTBC 感染的非洲水牛（Syncerus caffer）、白犀牛（Ceratotherium simum）和非洲象（非洲象属）。将 TiKa-KiC 净化剂用于添加 10,000 到 10 个牛分枝杆菌(SB0121) 和结核分枝杆菌菌落形成单位 (cfu) 的样品(H37Rv) 对培养中的分离株回收率没有影响。相比之下，使用 MGIT MycoPrep 去污导致浓度 < 1,000 cfu 和结核分枝杆菌样品 < 100 cfu 的牛分枝杆菌样本没有生长。随后，我们使用 TiKa 系统存储了从野生动物收集的临床样本（各种淋巴组织）和来自 3 个已知 MTBC 感染物种的少杆菌支气管肺泡灌洗液、躯干冲洗液和气管内导管冲洗液。总体而言，培养的 MTBC 回收率显着提高（p < 0.01) 通过使用 TiKa 与传统 MGIT 相比，分别有 57 个阳性样本中的 54 个和 57 个阳性样本中的 25 个。TiKa 分枝杆菌生长系统似乎显着提高了从非洲水牛、非洲大象和白犀牛收集的组织和少杆菌呼吸道样本中恢复 MTBC 成员的能力。此外，TiKa 系统可以提高以前认为无法从其他物种培养的各种样本类型的 MTBC 培养的成功率。