Species Spectrum of <I>Nocardia</I> spp. Isolated from Suspected Tuberculosis Patients

Abstract

Traditionally Nocardia asteroides was considered the predominant species of causing nocardiosis. The improved identification of isolates using molecular techniques have shown that the genus exhibits considerable taxonomic complexity and phenotypic base identification can be ambiguous. The aim of this study was to assess the species distribution of Nocardia strains mostly recovered from patients suspected of having tuberculosis, during three years period (2009-2012). The clinical isolates were identified to species level using conventional tests and genotypic methods using single and multi locus sequence analysis (MLSA) of 16S rRNA, gyrB and secA1 genes. Nocardiosis was diagnosed in 46 patients. The most frequent underlying condition were organ transplantation (6 patients; 13%), cancer (6 patients; 13%), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (6 patients; 13%), non-infectious chronic lung disease (5 patients; 10.8%) and tuberculosis (4 patients; 8.7%). Nocardia species was recovered from 46 different clinical specimens, the most common of which was bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) (43.5%). Eleven different Nocardia species were identified: N. asteroides (n = 12), N. cyriacigeorgica (n = 9), N. farcinica (n = 7), N. wallacei (n = 6), N. carnea (n = 3), N. otitidiscaviarum (n = 3), N. abscessus (n = 1), N. arthritidis (n = 1), N. kruczakiae (n = 1), N. nova (n = 2) and N. veterana (n = 1). In conclusion, infection caused by Nocardia species appears to be more common than generally appreciated. The current study provides further evidence that Nocardia species are capable of causing a wide range of human diseases in healthy and immunocompromised patients. MLSA is a reliable method for accurate species identification of Nocardia * The GenBank accession numbers of investigated clinical isolates of Nocardia determined in this work are as follows: KC262083-KC262128, KC262130-KC262175 and KC296657-KC296702 for the 16S rRNA, gyrB and secA1, respectively. # Corresponding author.A. Hashemi-Shahraki et al. 848isolates and would be more feasible for routine use in clinical laboratories.

Genetic diversity and antimicrobial susceptibility of Nocardia species among patients with nocardiosis

“…Out of 127 clinical isolates, 31 (24%) were N. asteroides , 25 (20%) were N. cyriacigeorgica , 26(21%) were N. farcinica ,12 (9%) were N.otitidiscaviarum ,19 (15%) were N. abscessus , 6(5%) were N. wallacei, 3 (2%) were N. carnea, 2 (2%) were N.nova, and one each were from N. kruczkiae, N. veterana, and N. arthritidis . Some of these data were published elsewhere 13 .…”

Melica Uniflora Yapraklarinin Etanoli̇k Özütleri̇ni̇n in Vitro Bi̇yoloji̇k Akti̇vi̇tesi̇ni̇n Değerlendi̇ri̇lmesi̇

“…Actinomycetes are a filamentous Gram-positive bacteria group widely distributed in soil, water, and affiliation with plants [7]. Nocardia and Micrococcus are the well known pathogenic actinomycetes for animal species and humans [8][9][10]. Especially, Nocardia causes rare but clinically important diseases, and the infections require a long duration of antibiotics [11].…”

Isolation and Identification of Nocardia spp. from the local soils in diyala province

“…Nocardia does not belong to normal human flora , normally are saprophytes of soil and have a role in the decay of organic plant material. However, Nocardia have increasingly been isolated as infectious agents in immune-suppressed patients [5,6]. There are different factors such as pH, soil type, climate, temperature and humidity can affect the abundance of Nocardia spp.…”