Oral Abscess Caused by Chryseobacterium indologenes in Ball Python (Python regius); A Case Report

Abstract

Chryseobacterium indologenes is an opportunistic pathogen isolated from human infections and, rarely, from some aquatic animals. A 3-year-old male ball python (Python regius) was admitted to the veterinary clinic by a pet owner because of acute respiratory and swallowing failure. During physical examinations, oral secretions and abscesses were observed in the mouth cavity and throat of the animal. After microbiological analysis including isolation, identification, and 16s rRNA sequencing, C. indologenes was detected as the main cause of the oral abscess in this case. Phylogenetic relatedness analysis showed a close relationship between this isolate and other strains isolated from human infections. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing revealed that the isolate was multi-drug resistant. However, it was very sensitive to minocycline, ceftazidime, and tetracycline. The patient was treated by antibiotic therapy and completely recovered after two weeks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first incidence of C. indologenes in an oral abscess in a ball python. As a result we would consider this organism as an opportunistic animal pathogen with zoonotic potentiality.

Fatal Chryseobacterium indologenes infection in a captive red‐shanked Douc langur (Pygathrix nemaeus)

“…Chryseobacterium indolegenes is a ubiquitous environmental aerobic Gram-negative rod bacterium that is an uncommon aetiologic agent causing sepsis and serious bacterial infections in humans, reptiles, fish and birds. [3][4][5][6] Diseases in infected individuals include bacteraemia, keratitis, meningitis, peritonitis and pneumonia, with immunocompromised human patients and patients with indwelling medical devices being at a higher risk of infection. 7 However, the clinical significance of C. indolegenes infection is generally poorly understood.…”

Atypical flavobacteria recovered from diseased fish in the Western United States

“…Experimentally demonstrated virulence in fish C. aahli Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) Chinook salmon eggs (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) (Loch, 2012;Loch and Faisal, 2014b, Loch and Faisal, 2015b, Loch and Faisal, 2018 C. balustinum Halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) Dace (Leuciscus leuciscus) (Harrison, 1929;Brisou, 1959) C (Buresǒváet al, 2006;Maravićet al, 2013;Pridgeon et al, 2013;YiBin et al, 2018;Hugo et al, 2019;Mwega et al, 2019;Sebastião et al, 2019b;Malka et al, 2020;Tamai et al, 2021;Chong et al, 2022) (Continued) et al 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1149032 related species in genera like Flavobacterium and Chryseobacterium (Janda and Abbott, 2007;Kumru et al, 2020). The gyrB gene typically has a faster evolution rate than the 16S rRNA gene, resulting in higher genetic heterogeneity and improved discrimination at the species level for bacterial genotyping (Wang et al, 2007;Galloway-Peña et al, 2014;Reichley et al, 2017).…”