Corynebacterium phoceense, resident member of the urogenital microbiota?

Abstract

Corynebacterium phoceense is a Gram-positive species previously isolated from human urine. Although other species from the same genus have been associated with urinary tract infections, C. phoceense is currently believed to be a non-pathogenic member of the urogenital microbiota. Prior to our study, only two isolates were described in the literature, and very little is known about the species. Here, we describe C. phoceense UFMG-H7, the first strain of this species isolated from the urine of healthy cattle. The genome for this isolate was produced and compared to the two other publicly available C. phoceense as well as other Corynebacterium genome assemblies. Our in-depth genomic analysis identified four additional publicly available genome assemblies that are representatives of the species, also isolated from the human urogenital tract. Although none of the strains have been associated with symptoms or disease, numerous genes associated with virulence factors are encoded. In contrast to related Corynebacterium species and Corynebacterium species from the bovine vaginal tract, all C. phoceense strains examined code for the SpaD-type pili suggesting adherence is essential for its persistence within the urinary tract. As the other C. phoceense strains analysed were isolated from the human urogenital tract, our results suggest that this species may be specific to this niche.

Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolated From Urine of Healthy Bovine Have Potential as Emerging Human and Bovine Pathogens

“…The human UT microbiota is the best studied UT microbiota amongst mammals. Isolation of strains from the bovine UT, including our prior work investigating other bacterial taxa ( Giannattasio-Ferraz et al, 2020a , b , c , d , e , 2021a ) and our study presented here, is a further step toward understanding the healthy bovine UT microbiota. Furthermore, here we have compared these bovine isolates to human UT isolates, producing the first examination of urinary bacteria and urinary phages from two different mammals.…”

“…Based upon the 16S rRNA gene sequence, four isolates from four different animals were identified as P. aeruginosa and five isolates, from the same four animals, were identified as E. coli . Isolates of other taxa have been described elsewhere ( Giannattasio-Ferraz et al, 2020a , b , c , d , e , 2021a , b ).…”

“…More recently, microbiome studies have found bacteria within the UT of other healthy mammals, including canines ( Burton et al, 2017 ) and swine ( Torres Luque et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, through our prior efforts, we have isolated several different bacterial taxa from the UT of healthy cattle ( Giannattasio-Ferraz et al, 2020a , b , c , d , e , 2021a ).…”

Microbial Musings – July 2021

“…We now switch to a couple of papers on commensal bacteria, the first of which describes the genomic features of a relatively newly described actinobacterium called Corynebacterium phoceense [12], named from the Latin for the French city of Marseille, where it was first isolated from a human urine sample in 2016 [13]. The genus Corynebacterium contains a diverse collection of bugs, ranging from known pathogens such as C.…”