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Review
. 2020 Aug 17;9(8):524.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics9080524.

The Pathogenic Role of Actinomyces spp. and Related Organisms in Genitourinary Infections: Discoveries in the New, Modern Diagnostic Era

Márió Gajdács  1   2 , Edit Urbán  3
Affiliations
Review

The Pathogenic Role of Actinomyces spp. and Related Organisms in Genitourinary Infections: Discoveries in the New, Modern Diagnostic Era

Márió Gajdács et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Actinomycosis is a chronic, suppurative, granulomatous infectious disease, caused by different species of Actinomyces bacteria. To date, 26 validly published Actinomyces species have been described as part of a normal human microbiota or from human clinical specimens. Due to the rapid spread of new, modern diagnostic procedures, 13 of 26 of these species have been described in this century and the Actinomycetaceae family has undergone several taxonomic revisions, including the introduction of many novel species termed Actinomyces-like organisms (ALOs). There is scarce data available on the role of these novel bacterial species in various infectious processes in human medicine. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of Actinomyces and closely related organisms involved in human diseases-with a special focus on newly described species-in particular their role in genitourinary tract infections in females and males.

Keywords: Actinomyces; Actinomyces-like organisms; Actinotignum; MALDI-TOF MS; anaerobe; genitourinary; sequencing; taxonomy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest, monetary or otherwise.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Phylogenetic analysis of bacterial genera discussed in this paper (namely Actinomyces, Actinotignum, Arcanobacterium, and Varibaculum) including both pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains. Bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences were retrieved from the LPSN (List of Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature) database [39], while analysing phylogenetic relationships were analysed using Phylogeny.fr in a PhyML and BLAST-EXPLORER environment [40,41].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Typical colony morphology (A) and Gram-staining (B) of A. bovis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagnostic algorithm for the diagnosis of Actinomyces infections (reproduced with permission from [1]). Abbreviations: PRAS: pre-reduced, anaerobically sterilized; MALDI-TOF: matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry; PCR: polymerase chain reaction; PAS: periodic acid–Schiff stain; CT: computer tomography; MRI: magnetic resonance imaging.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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