Environmental mycobacteria in bottled table waters in Greece

A hundred and fifty samples of bottled table water sold by Greek factories were examined for the presence of environmental mycobacteria. Environmental mycobacteria were found in 23 (15.6%) of the 150 tested samples. Bacterial numbers of 1-100, 101-300, 301-1000, and > 10(3) CFU/L were found in 8, 2, 1, and 4% of the samples, respectively. The identification of the environmental mycobacteria was performed by both polymerase chain reaction-restriction enzyme analysis (PCR-REA) and biochemical methods. The environmental mycobacteria found were 14 Mycobacterium chelonae, 3 Mycobacterium phlei, 4 Mycobacterium gordonae, and 2 Mycobacterium flavescens. The relatively high number of environmental mycobacteria in bottled table water leads us to believe that the search of these opportunistic microorganisms in bottled water could be a useful index of their hygienic quality when this water is to be consumed by immunologically compromised patients. No statistically significant correlation was found between the presence of mycobacteria and the bacteriological faecal indicators (P < 0.005).