Infection in a Young Immunocompetent Male Caused by Streptobacillus felis, a Putative Zoonotic Microorganism Transmitted by Cats

Abstract

Rat bite fever (RBF) is predominantly caused by Streptobacillus moniliformis. We report a human infection with Streptobacillus felis. Clinical presentation was consistent with RBF, but serologic testing was negative for S. moniliformis. Eventually, S. felis specific sequences were detected in skin lesions of the patient and in the oropharynx of local cats.

Streptobacillus felis, a member of the oropharynx microbiota of the Felidae, isolated from a tropical rusty-spotted cat

“…To our knowledge, this is the second available strain with proper species identification and an extended genetic and phenotypic knowledge base. Although we could recently show that approximately 50% of randomly selected, mostly healthy domestic cats harbor S. felis (Matt et al 2020 ), the isolation of these streptobacilli from cats is a rare exceptional case. A number of studies have indicated dogs and cats as possible vectors of S. moniliformis to humans, especially after mouthing wild rats (Gascard et al 1967 ; Maynard et al 1986 ; Mollaret 1969 ; Peel 1993 ; Wouters et al 2008 ).…”

“…Fusobacterium nucleatum is used as outgroup. ''T'' indicating type strain; Bar, 0.01 amino acid substitutions per site canine oral microbiota (Matt et al 2020) and has been isolated from a phlegmon on a dog's hindleg (Eisenberg et al 2020b). Hypothesizing that bite wounds are often caused by oral microbiota (Abrahamian and Goldstein 2011), one can speculate that streptobacilli from cats might occasionally also be involved in wound infections.…”

“…It was recently found that these PCR assays are rather genus than species specific (Eisenberg et al 2015c ). Therefore, we have recently designed primers (forward: 5′- AGT ATG GGA AAT AGT AGA TAA TAG-3′ and reverse 5′- ACT GTA GAT TGT GAG TTC TT-3′) that could specifically amplify a partial sequence of the gyrB gene (732 bp) of the S. felis genome (Matt et al 2020 ). The PCR reaction components and cycling conditions were carried out as previously described in Fawzy et al ( 2016 ) with minor modifications (annealing temperature was 53 °C and elongation time was 90 s).…”

“…(JABMKT000000000; BioSample SAMN14996772; BioProject PRJNA634464), respectively. Further accession numbers of gyrB sequences from mouth swabs from cats are MT498840-MT498846 and have been published in Matt et al ( 2020 ). Strain LHL191014123 has been deposited at the German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (DSMZ), the Culture Collection of the University Gotenburg (CCUG), the Collection of Institute Pasteur (CIP) and the strain collection of the Hessian State Laboratory (LHL) under identifiers DSM110500, CCUG74119, CIP111794 and LHL191014123.…”

“…from a cat with pneumonia and a dog with phlegmon, respectively (Eisenberg et al 2015a , 2020b ). However, with respect to zoonotic potential, S. notomytis has been found to also cause RBF in humans (Fukushima et al 2017 ; Ogawa et al 2018 ) and a similar case of RBF could recently be attributed to S. felis for the first time (Matt et al 2020 ). Interestingly, various Streptobacillus phylotypes consistent with 16S rRNA gene sequence based operational taxonomic units (OTU) have been described from humans and various animal species (Fig.…”