{"doi":"10.3389/fcimb.2025.1550277","title":"Editorial: Non-tuberculous mycobacteria infections and COVID-19","abstract":"Pulmonary diseases due to mycobacteria cause significant morbidity and mortality to human health. Mycobacterial lung infections are caused by mycobacteria, which include the causative agents of tuberculosis (TB) and leprosy. Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are also ubiquitous in soil, water, and food. They are usually harmless to people but for unknown reasons, NTM lung infections are becoming more prevalent in the developed world, including the United States, particularly in the Southwest (including southern California), Southeast, and Hawaii. Recent epidemiological studies have shown the emergence of NTM species in causing lung diseases in humans. Although more than 170 NTM species are present in various environmental niches, only a handful, primarily M. avium complex and M. abscessus, have been implicated in pulmonary disease [1]. Following inhalation, both Mtb and NTM are phagocytosed by alveolar macrophages in the lungs. Subsequently, various immune cells are recruited from the circulation to the site of infection, which leads to granuloma formation. Although the pathophysiology of TB and NTM diseases share several fundamental cellular and molecular events, the host-susceptibility to Mtb and NTM infections are different. Striking differences also exist in the disease presentation between TB and NTM cases. While NTM disease is primarily associated with bronchiectasis, this condition is rarely a predisposing factor for TB. Similarly, in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-infected individuals, NTM disease presents as a disseminated, extrapulmonary form rather than as a pulmonary disease, which is seen in Mtb infection. Since NTM is causing lung diseases in humans along with COVID-19, and the interaction of these two morbidities has not been investigated much so far, our aim with this Research Topic, is to collect all the most recent data to aid the national health systems and health workers of the countries struck by NTM plus COVID--19 and to gather useful knowledge to tackle these infectious diseases together. Finally, laboratory diagnosis and treatment of both diseases are quite different. In this comprehensive Research Topic Kuenstner et al investigated cytokine expression in the samples from Temple University/Abilene Christian University (TU/ACU) study that had a prospective case control design with 201 subjects including 61 crohn's disease (CD) patients and 140 non-CD controls [2]. Findings from this study indicate that most subjects in the study samples had Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection and 8 of 9 subjects remained MAP positive one year later indicating persistent infection [3]. While not identical, cytokine expression patterns in MAP culture positive CD patients in the TU/ACU study showed similarities (increased IL-17, IFNγ and TNFα) to patterns of patients with TB in other studies, indicating the possibilities of similar mechanisms of pathogen infection and potential strategies for treatment [2].The accurate identification of the Mtb complex (MTBC) and different NTM species is crucial for the timely diagnosis of NTM infections and for reducing poor prognoses. Nucleotide matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has been extensively used for microbial identification with high accuracy and throughput. However, its efficacy for mycobacterium species identification has been less studied. The objective of Zhu et al's study [3] was to evaluate the performance of nucleotide MALDI-TOF-MS for mycobacterium species identification [3]. The total correct detection rate of all 933 clinical mycobacterium isolates using nucleotide MALDI-TOF-MS was 91.64% (855/933), and mixed infections were detected in 18.65% (174/933) of the samples. The correct detection rates for M. intracellulare, M. abscessus, M. kansasii, M. avium, MTBC, M. gordonae, and M. massiliense were 99.32% (585/589), 100% (86/86), 98.46% (64/65), 94.59% (35/37), 100.00% (34/34), 95","journal":"Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology","year":2025,"id":555429,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9624,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":239632,"name":"Vishwanath Venketaraman","orcid":"0000-0002-2586-1160","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":1,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:59.329539Z","pmid":"40012612","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}