SGM Journals
New Taxa - Firmicutes And Related Organisms

Streptococcus tigurinus sp. nov., isolated from blood of patients with endocarditis, meningitis and spondylodiscitis

Andrea Zbinden, Nicolas J. Mueller, Philip E. Tarr, Cathrin Spröer, Peter M. Keller, Guido V. Bloemberg

  • 1 Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Zurich, Switzerland;
  • 2 Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland;
  • 3 Infectious Diseases Service, Kantonsspital Bruderholz, University of Basel, Switzerland;
  • 4 DSMZ - Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany
  • ↵5 E-mail: azbinden{at}imm.uzh.ch

    • International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 2012;:ijs.0.038299-0 · https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.038299-0

    View at publisher PubMed

    Abstract

    Four Gram-stain-positive, catalase-negative, coccus-shaped bacterial strains were isolated from multiple blood cultures of patients with endocarditis, meningitis and spondylodiscitis. The isolates were tentatively identified as viridans streptococcal species based on phenotypic characteristics. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequencing studies showed that the organisms were members of the Streptococcus mitis group but did not correspond to any recognized species. The nearest phylogenetic relative was Streptococcus mitis ATCC 49456T with 98.6% sequence similarity. The representative strain AZ_3aT showed similarity values of less than 96.8%, 97.6%, 94.5% and 95.5% to the phylogenetically most closely related species by recA, rpoB, sodA and groEL gene sequence analysis, respectively. DNA-DNA hybridization analyses showed a low reassociation value of 32.2% between strain AZ_3aT and S. mitis DSM 12643T. Reassociation values with other S. mitis group species ranged from 27.3% to 49.7%. The G+C content of the DNA is 40.0 mol%. Based on our biochemical and molecular analyses, the novel isolates represent a new species, for which the name Streptococcus tigurinus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is AZ_3aT( =CCOS 600T =DSM 24864T).