Detection of New Pigments Related to Purple Urine Bag Syndrome

Abstract

It is well known that participation of two kinds of pigments, indigo blue and indigo red, are concerned with purple urine bag syndrome (PUBS).
However, there is no research which describes the participation of other pigments. We separated three new kinds of red pigments, other than indigo blue and indigo red, from four patients with PUBS. One of the pigments was not visible to the naked eye and appeared only when an ultraviolet ray was irradiated. The appearance patterns of indigo blue, indigo red and the three new red pigments were in complete agreement in two cases, but differed in the other two cases.
Moreover, bacteria isolated from the urine were cultured in an indican-added alkaline liquid media (pH9), 80% or more bacteria produced purple pigments. In case 1, from deep-colored pigments, each bacterium produced both indigo blue and indigo red, although new pigments could not be observed in the in vitro media.