Generally non-pathogenic mycobacterium capable of causing soft tissue lesions.. Mycolicibacterium smegmatis MC2 155

Mycobacterium smegmatis strain MC2 155. This strain (MC2 155) is a mutant of M. smegmatis. It was isolated in 1990. Unlike other strains of this species, MC2 can be 10 to 100 thousand times more efficiently transformed with plasmid vectors using electroporation than the parental strain and thus is invaluable in analysis of mycobacterial gene function, expression and replication.