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Introduction. Staphylococcus felis is a coagulase-negative staphylococcal species that is commonly isolated from healthy cats. Like other commensal staphylococci, S. felis can cause opportunistic infections, e.g. otitis externa, skin and urinary tract infections, in cats. Gap Statement. Several studies have reported within-household transmission between humans and pets and human infections caused by coagulase-positive staphylococci. However, human infections with coagulase-negative staphylococci of zoonotic origin are relatively rare. Methodology. Culture of a surgical site infection in a 58-year-old woman who underwent a laminectomy revealed dominant growth of S. felis . The three cats owned by the patient were sampled to investigate potential within-household transmission. S. felis isolates were sequenced to investigate the relatedness of the isolates and to look for virulence factors and host specific genes. Results. All cats were colonized with S. felis . Comparative genomics of the isolates showed that each cat was colonized with a distinct genotype. The patient's isolate clustered with isolates of one of the cats. Sequence analysis of the studied isolates together with 29 publicly available S. felis genomes detected putative virulence factors that can be crucial in potential interspecies transmission. Conclusion. The current case is the first reported human infection caused by S. felis and highlights the zoonotic potential of this bacterial species. Evidence of cat-to-human transmission was shown by comparative genomics of isolates from the patient with isolates of her cats.

Differentiation of Campylobacter fetus into C. fetus subsp. fetus (Cff) and C. fetus subsp. venerealis (Cfv) is important for both clinical and economic reasons. In the past, several molecular typing methods have been used for differentiation, including amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). In this study, AFLP was employed to identify C. fetus subspecies specific markers that can serve as a basis for design of novel PCR primer sets for Cfv. Four groups of C. fetus strains with different phenotypic or genotypic traits were examined by AFLP using 22 different DdeI/MboI primer combinations. Specific AFLP fragments were deduced and sequenced resulting in 41 sequences. Based on the obtained sequences, five potential subspecies-specific PCR assays were developed. Extensive evaluation of the five selected PCRs with a set of 65 diverse C. fetus strains identified primer set Cf C05 as subspecies Cfv-specific. This newly developed PCR is fully consistent with the AFLP subspecies differentiation results. The data indicate AFLP as a powerful tool for comparing closely related genomes and for exploiting this information to develop a specific PCR with extensive typing potential.