Studies on Nocardia and Related Organisms (in Japanese with English abstract)

Abstract

Institute of Food Microbiology, Chiba University, was established in 1946 and reorganized into Research Institute for Chemobiodynamics in 1973. The institute ceased its existence in 1987. Research work on actinomycetes, nocardia and related organisms in particular, carried out in these institutes was briefly reviewed.
As early as in 1963, infrared spectrometry was successfully introduced to characterize actinomycetes more precisely. Four regions in the whole cell infrared spectrum were selected and they were classified into five characteristic absorption patterns. The spectra of N. madurae, S. pelletieri, S. somaliensis and S. paraguayensis showed the spectra which were observed neither with the strains of Nocardia nor Streptomyces.
Later Lechvalier et al. proposed a generic name Actinomadura to place these actinomycetes.
Diagnostic studies of the agents of nocardiosis and mycetomas had also been performed.
Chemical soil stabilization has been applied to a wide variety of soils and permitted the building of roadways, dams, banks, blocks and the like. Soil stabilization by acrylamide gel involves the incorporation of acrylamide in form of the monomer into naturally occurring soils and its polymerization in situ with the aid of redox catalysts. During the year 1974 to 1975, outbreaks of toxicosis characterized by equilibrium disorder were reported. It was found that the residua acrylamide monomer still present in the polymerized soil stabilizer had contaminated the wells supplying the patients’ residences with drinking water. In an attempt to develop a microbiological process for the control of the pollution, an actinomycete strain which produced a potential constitutive enzyme deaminating acrylamide monomer was isolated and named Rhodococcus amidophilus sp. nov.
More lately, the susceptibility of nocardia and related organisms to chemotherapeutic agents and the mechanism of nocardial acid-fastness are being studied.