Search

Six strains of a rapidly growing scotochromogenic mycobacterium were isolated from pulmonary specimens of independent patients. Biochemical and cultural tests were not suitable for their identification. The mycolic acid pattern analysed by HPLC was different from that of any other mycobacterium. Genotypic characterization, targeting seven housekeeping genes, revealed the presence of microheterogeneity in all of them. Different species were more closely related to the test strains in various regions: the type strain of Mycobacterium moriokaense showed 99.0 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, and 91.5–96.5 % similarity for the remaining six regions. The whole genome sequences of the proposed type strain and that of M. moriokaense presented an average nucleotide identity (ANI) of 82.9 %. Phylogenetic analysis produced poorly robust trees in most genes with the exception of rpoB and sodA where Mycobacterium flavescens and Mycobacterium novocastrense were the closest species. This phylogenetic relatedness was confirmed by the tree inferred from five concatenated genes, which was very robust. The polyphasic characterization of the test strains, supported by the ANI value, demonstrates that they belong to a previously unreported species, for which the name Mycobacterium celeriflavum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is AFPC-000207T ( = DSM 46765T = JCM 18439T).

Infection is a common complication in patients carrying a central venous catheter (CVC) and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Leclercia adecarboxylata is an unusual but emerging pathogen in healthy and immunocompromised patients. We report a case of L. adecarboxylata bacteraemia in a patient with a haemodialysis tunnelled CVC. In accordance with the susceptibility to the tested antimicrobials, a long-course treatment with intravenous gentamicin plus amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and gentamicin-lock therapy was adopted. The patient had a full recovery and the catheter was not removed. We also performed a systematic PubMed/Medline and Scopus review of peer-reviewed English papers on L. adecarboxylata infections, focusing on bacteraemia in patients with different types of CVCs. Moreover, we suggest a treatment algorithm to preserve the patient and maintain the CVC.

Chlamydia trachomatis infections represent the most common sexually transmitted diseases.The lack of growth of these microorganisms on common media and the roundabout research by immunofluorescence, has meant that, until now, these special-lived intracellular microorganisms have played a role probably underestimated in cases of infections affecting the sexual organs.The introduction of molecular biology has made possible their research in a much more simple, reliable and standardized methods. The study was carried out on endocervical samples, male urethral swabs and urine samples of men and women, determining the C. trachomatis DNA amplified using the BD ProbeTec ET system. This system uses technology SDA (Strand Displacement Amplification - Elongationcrowding of the blanks). The study was conducted from June 2008 to june 2009. Symptomatic and asyntptomatic patients residents in the provinces of Novara and the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola were considered. In this period 784 determinations were made in molecular biology. Chlamydia trachomatis was found in 26 cases equal to a percentage of 3.32%. While considering these preliminary data, however, we can estimate the rate of detection of C. trachomatis as a good starting point, because we have the impression that improved procedures particularly relate to the techniques for sampling and for storage and transport of the sample, can undoubtedly lead to much higher percentages.

Central venous catheter represents a major source of nosocomial bloodstream infection, which cause considerable excess morbidity.The diagnosis of catheter-related infections relies on the presence of clinical manifestation of infection and the evidence of colonization of the catheter tip by bacteria or fungi. The most frequent pathogens were Gram-positive organisms, mainly coagulase negative staphylococci, followed by Gram-negative and mycetes. During the years 2001-2003 we examined 2079 vascular catheters, of which 896 were positive for bacterial and fungal species. Of these, 675 (75,3%) involved Gram-positive bacterial, 145 (16,2%) Gram-negative and 76 (8,5%) mycetes.

In thIe latter years Enterobacter cloacae has been counted as a very important occasional pathogen, above all in causing hospital infections.The micro-organism’s interesting increases because of its high resistance in vitro to many antimicrobial agents. For this reason it would be possible to find out others resistance mutant phenotypes. The results (2000-2001 and the first six months of 2002), carried out 341 isolated samples from hospital patients, show that the percentage of these E. cloacae is little more than 1%, increasing prevalence of patients belonging to General Surgery and Intensive Care Unit. The susceptible tests suggest (without important differences during the whole year) that most of the clinical isolates have moderate or high level resistance to various antimicrobial agents (penicillins, cephalosporins, aminoglycosides, quinolones, monobactam) and almost all were susceptible to amikacin, carbapenems (imipenem) and trimethoprim/sulfmamethoxazolo. Always regarding the resistance of these pathogens, it was possible to find out some phenotypes, and one of these, among 172 isolates belonging to Intensive Care Unit, was a particular multiresistance phenotype. The VITEK ESsL detection test and the conventional double disk synergy test for detection of ESsL find out some phenotypes showing expression of stably derepressed beta-lactamase.