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Nocardia arizonensis sp. nov., obtained from human respiratory specimens

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Abstract

In 2008, three clinical isolates (W9405T, W9409 and W9575) were obtained from bronchial wash or sputum specimens from patients from the state of Arizona and characterised by polyphasic analysis. All three clinical isolates 16S rRNA gene sequences were found to be 100 % identical to each other and showed the strains belong in the genus Nocardia. BLASTn searches in the GenBank database of near full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences showed the highest sequence similarities to the type strains of Nocardia takedensis (98.3 %, sequence similarity), Nocardia lijiangensis (97.4 %), Nocardia harenae (97.4 %), and Nocardia xishanensis (97.1 %). The DNA–DNA relatedness between isolate W9405T and the type strain of N. takedensis is 26.0 ± 2.4 % when measured in silico using genomic DNA sequences. The G+C content of isolate W9405T is 68.6 mol%. Chemotaxonomic analyses of the clinical isolates were consistent with their assignment to the genus Nocardia: whole cell hydrolysates contain meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid of peptidoglycan; the whole-cell sugars are arabinose and galactose; the predominant phospholipids include diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylinositol; MK-8-(H4) ω-cyc as the major menaquinone; mycolic acids ranging from 38 to 62 carbon atoms; and palmitic acid, tuberculostearic acid, palmitelaidic acid and oleic acid are the major fatty acids. Genus and species specific profiles were obtained following analysis by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectra of the clinical isolates. All isolates were found to be intermediately resistant or resistant to minocycline and resistant to ciprofloxacin but were susceptible to amikacin, imipenem and linezolid. Our polyphasic analysis suggest the three clinical isolates obtained from patients in Arizona represent a novel species of Nocardia for which we propose the name Nocardia arizonensis, with strain W9405T (=DSM 45748T = CCUG 62754T = NBRC 108935T) as the type strain.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Jean Euzéby for nomenclatural advice and Gabi Pötter and Ulrike Steiner (both DSMZ) for help in chemotaxonomic analysis and recording of MALDI-TOF mass spectra, respectively. We acknowledge the assistance of Linda Getsinger, MS, and Clarisse A. Tsang, MPH, from the Arizona Department of Health Services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Building 17, Room 2025, Mailstop G-11, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA, 30333, USA

    Brent A. Lasker

  2. Bacterial Special Pathogens Branch, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, 30333, USA

    Brent A. Lasker, Melissa Bell & June M. Brown

  3. Leibniz-Institute DSMZ - German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, 38124, Brunswick, Germany

    Peter Schumann

  4. School of Biology, Newcastle University, Ridley Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Hans-Peter Klenk

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  1. Brent A. Lasker
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  2. Melissa Bell
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  3. Hans-Peter Klenk
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  4. Peter Schumann
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  5. June M. Brown
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Correspondence to Brent A. Lasker.

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10482_2015_566_MOESM1_ESM.pptx

Supplementary material 1 (PPTX 79 kb) Supplementary Fig. S1. Neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree of aligned 16S rRNA gene sequences showing the position of the three clinical isolates to validly named type strains within the genus Nocardia. Bootstrap percentages are shown based on 1000, re-sampled data sets; only values ≥50 % are shown. The tree was rooted using the sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis ATCC 27294T as the outgroup. Bar, 0.002 substitutions per nucleotide position

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Lasker, B.A., Bell, M., Klenk, HP. et al. Nocardia arizonensis sp. nov., obtained from human respiratory specimens. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 108, 1129–1137 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-015-0566-4

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