Image dataset of environmental non-tuberculous mycobacteria isolated from heater cooler units water by the new NTM Elite agar

This article presents an image dataset of non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) isolated from heater-cooler units (HCU) using the recently developed NTM Elite agar (bioMérieux, Marcy-l'Étoile, France). NTM (e.g., Mycobacterium chimaera, Mycobacterium gordonae, Mycobacterium chelonae, etc.) are waterborne pathogens commonly found in building water systems, where they pose a primary concern for vulnerable patient populations and can cause severe disease. NTM can also be recovered from various engineered environments, including aerosols from pools and spas, ice machines, and medical devices in healthcare settings, such as HCUs used during cardiac surgery. Due to the diverse bacterial communities that exist in environmental samples, isolating and recovering NTM from water using culture-based methods is an arduous process. Decontamination agents, although often successful in reducing non-mycobacterial growth, have shown limited effectiveness in recovering some NTM species, while also killing others. To address this issue, a more selective agar known as NTM ELITE agar has been developed. This highly selective medium includes four antimicrobial agents (colistin, fosfomycin, amphotericin, and C-390) and does not require a decontamination step. In this data article, we present images of colonies grown on the Elite agar that have been confirmed as NTM, captured using an iPhone 11 dual camera. The dataset contains high-quality images of NTM colonies (top views of agar plates) at different growth stages. To our knowledge, this is the first open-access dataset of NTM images, which can help fill the gaps in images of environmental NTM grown on the new ELITE agar. It is also valuable for microbiologists, who can recognize mycobacteria of human origin but may have limited experience in identifying NTM present in environmental samples.