Catheter-associated bacteremia by Mycobacterium senegalense in Korea

Abstract

Background: Rapidly growing mycobacteria is recognized as one of the causative agents of catheter-related infections, especially in immunocompromised hosts. To date, however, Mycobacterium senegalense, which was known as the principal pathogen of bovine farcy, has not been reported in human infection.

Case presentation: We describe the first case of human infection by M. senegalense, which has caused catheter-related bloodstream infection in a cancer patient in Korea. The microorganism was identified by the 16S rRNA gene, rpoB, and 16S-23S rRNA gene internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analyses.

Conclusion: Our first report of catheter-associated bacteremia caused by M. senegalense suggests the zoonotic nature of this species and indicates the expansion of mycobacterial species relating to human infection. M. senegalense should be considered as one of the causes of human infections in the clinical practice.

Figure 1

Phylogenetic relationships of SMC-7485 and other Mycobacterium species based on ITS sequences, which were retrieved from GenBank database. This tree was generated by the neighbor-joining method. Mycobacterium vaccae DSM 43292 was used as an outlier. Numbers at branching nodes are percentages of 1,000 bootstrap replications. Only values greater than 50% are shown. In this tree, M. senegalense strains are separated into two subgroups.