01873nas a2200277   4500000000100000008004100001260001700042653001200059653001100071653001300082653002100095653000900116653001100125653001200136653000900148653002400157653002500181653000900206100001500215245010700230300001100337490000700348050003200355520119400387022001401581       1994                            d  c1994 Oct-Dec10aAnimals10aBiopsy10aEthidium10aFluorescent Dyes10aFoot10aHumans10aleprosy10aMice10aMice, Inbred BALB C10aMycobacterium leprae10aSkin1 aKatoch V M00aComparative assessment of viability of M.leprae by mouse foot-pad and fluorescent staining techniques.  a455-620 v66  aInfolep Library - available3 a<p>Morphological characteristics have been used as a parameter to assess the viability of M.leprae in leprosy patients. However, with the advent of the mouse foot-pad technique, viability of M.leprae is determined by growing the bacilli in the mouse foot-pad. In recent years, a fluorescent staining technique using fluorescent diacetate-ethidium bromide (FDA-EB) has been used to assess the viability of cultivable mycobacteria as well as M.leprae. The purpose of this study was to compare the viability of M.leprae by both mouse foot-pad and fluorescent staining techniques. M.leprae strains from both untreated and treated patients as well as mouse passaged strains of M.leprae were used for the comparison. Percentage of green-stained bacilli in the inoculum was compared with that of multiplication of M.leprae in the mouse foot-pad. It was observed that there was no correlation between the estimates of viable M.leprae by fluorescent staining and by mouse foot-pad inoculation. FDA-EB staining appears to reflect only trends as absence of green staining cells had overall general correlation with loss of infectivity to mouse foot-pad but, the converse was not found to be true.</p>  a0254-9395