Two Japanese Corynebacterium ulcerans isolates from the same hospital: ribotype, toxigenicity and serum antitoxin titre

Abstract

Two toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans isolates recovered from pharyngeal swabs of two patients from the same hospital in Japan during [2001][2002] were characterized by PFGE and ribotyping. Toxin production in different culture media was examined and serological analysis of patient sera was performed. The two isolates could not be distinguished by PFGE; however, their ribotypes were distinguishable. One of the isolates could represent a novel ribotype. Analysis of toxin production in different culture media demonstrated that the two isolates produced varying amounts of the diphtheria toxin. Serological analysis showed a greater than sevenfold increase in the serum antitoxin titre during the course of infection in one patient.

Prevalence of Corynebacterium ulcerans in dogs in Osaka, Japan

“…Phylogenetic analysis of C. ulcerans isolates. C. ulcerans dog isolates obtained in this study (indicated in bold) as well as Japanese human isolates reported previously (Asakura et al, 2006;Hagiwara et al, 2006;Hatanaka et al, 2003;Komiya et al, 2010;Noguchi et al, 2009;Nureki et al, 2007) were analysed by PFGE as described in Methods. The phylogenetic tree was generated by the UPGMA method.…”

“…In Japan, eight cases of infection by toxigenic C. ulcerans in humans were reported between 2001 and 2011 (Asakura et al, 2006;Hagiwara et al, 2006;Hatanaka et al, 2003Hatanaka et al, , 2011Komiya et al, 2010;Noguchi et al, 2009;Nureki et al, 2007;Yoshimura et al, 2010). C. ulcerans causes purulent inflammatory diseases such as mastitis, lymphadenitis, dermatitis and respiratory infections in various domestic and wild animals.…”

Subcutaneous abscess formation in the upper extremity caused by toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans

“…Human C. ulcerans infections are caused by ingestion of untreated milk (Bostock et al, 1984) or close contact with animals (Hatanaka et al, 2003;Komiya et al, 2010;Tiwari et al, 2008). Our patient had six pet cats; although these animals were examined, C. ulcerans strains were not detected.…”

“…Because human infection with this bacterium has been frequently reported (Bonmarin et al, 2009;Katsukawa et al, 2012), the incidence of subcutaneous lesions due to C. ulcerans may increase in the near future. Therefore, the fact that C. ulcerans can cause a subcutaneous painful mass in the extremities is important for differential diagnosis.Human C. ulcerans infections are caused by ingestion of untreated milk (Bostock et al, 1984) or close contact with animals (Hatanaka et al, 2003;Komiya et al, 2010;Tiwari et al, 2008). Our patient had six pet cats; although these animals were examined, C. ulcerans strains were not detected.…”

“…Using PFGE (De Zoysa et al, 1995), the isolate was genetically compared with four isolates that were representatives of four groups into which a previous study classified the Japanese strains (Katsukawa et al, 2012). The location cities from which the four C. ulcerans isolates had been reported were Chiba (strain 0102) (Hatanaka et al, 2003;Komiya et al, 2010), Okayama (strain 0509) (Asakura et al, 2006), Oita (strain 0510) (Nureki et al, 2007) and Kanagawa (strain 0607) (Hagiwara et al, 2006). The PFGE results revealed that the genotype pattern of this patient's isolate showed 96 % identity with that of the human isolate 0607 in Kanagawa.…”