Staphylococcus pettenkoferi sp. nov., a novel coagulase-negative staphylococcal species isolated from human clinical specimens

Abstract

Five coagulase-negative, novobiocin-susceptible staphylococcal strains were isolated from human blood cultures in different German and Belgian medical facilities. A novel species, 'Staphylococcus pettenkoferi' was proposed recently to accommodate two of these strains (B3117 T and A6664), although the name was not validly published. All five strains belonged to the genus Staphylococcus because they were non-motile, Gram-positive, catalase-positive cocci with peptidoglycan type (A3a type L-Lys-Gly 2-4 -L-Ser-Gly), menaquinone pattern (MK-7, MK-6 and MK-8) and major cellular fatty acids (ai-C 15 : 0 , ai-C 17 : 0 and i-C 15 : 0 ) that corresponded to those of staphylococci. Phenotypically, the isolates most closely resembled Staphylococcus capitis subsp. capitis and Staphylococcus auricularis, but they could be distinguished from these species by physiological tests and chemotaxonomic investigations. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization, chemotaxonomic investigations and 16S rRNA gene and RNA polymerase B gene (rpoB) sequence analysis enabled strains B3117 T , K6999, 229 and 230 to be differentiated genotypically and phenotypically from known Staphylococcus species, indicating that these isolates are representatives of a novel species. The name Staphylococcus pettenkoferi sp. nov. is proposed for this novel species, with strain B3117 T (=CIP 107711 T =CCUG 51270 T ) as the type strain. Due to differences in the results of physiological and chemotaxonomic investigations and DNA-DNA hybridization data, strain A6664 was not included in the description of the novel species.

Characterization of Alkaline Phosphatase Producing Bacteria Isolated from Thai Fermented Fish Products

“…bovis GTC843 T with 99.2% similarity (Hajek et al, 1996). These three isolates could tolerate to 15% of NaCl as previous reported (Schleifer & Kloos, 1975;Hajek et al, 1996;Trülzsch et al, 2007). Therefore, they were identified as S. saprophyticus (Schleifer & Kloos, 1975).…”

“…The isolates NSW25-1 (1459 bp) and SK22-1 (1452 bp) were closely related to S. saprophyticus subsp. saprophyticus ATCC15305 T with 99.1-99.3% similarity (Trülzsch et al, 2007) and the isolate SK23-2 (1460 bp) was closely related to S. saprophyticus subsp. bovis GTC843 T with 99.2% similarity (Hajek et al, 1996).…”

eapGene as Novel Target for Specific Identification ofStaphylococcus aureus

“…Except for the clinically derived S. intermedius (3,5) and S. pettenkoferi (35) isolates, non-S. aureus isolates were (i) recovered from a wide range of clinical specimens derived from, e.g., human skin, respiratory tracts, urogenital tracts, and venous catheters at the University of Münster, Münster, Germany, or were (ii) collected from blood during the course of a German multicenter study and considered etiologically relevant (41). Only one isolate per patient was included in this study.…”

Beware of Unusual Organisms Masquerading as Skin Contaminants

“…As stated above, we presume that the Staphyloslide latex agglutination test reacted with staphylococcal protein A, which is supposed to be adequate to identify S. aureus. 16S rRNA sequencing and BLAST analysis identified the organism as S. pseudolugdenensis/pettenkorpheri, each of which has been reported to be the etiologic agent of sepsis in some cases, and a presumed skin contaminant in others [10,11]. The organism seems more likely to represent S. pettenkorferi, as S. pseudolugdenensis is reported to by pyrrolidolyl arylamidase positive and our organism was not.…”