Corynebacterium pseudogenitalium Urinary Tract Infection

positive Lyme disease serology in human granulocytic ehrlichiosis. Corynebacterium pseudogenitalium Urinary Tract Infection To the Editor: A 64-year-old man was admitted to the urology department of Cochin Hospital in Paris, France, for acute urinary retention. He had a history of recurrent urolithiasis and undocumented urinary tract symptoms. At admission, a urethral catheter was inserted, and a plain radi-ograph showed 2 bladder stones and milk of calcium calcifications. Three days later, he underwent extracorpo-real shock wave lithotripsy treatment, and empiric antimicrobial drug therapy with intravenous ceftriaxone, 1 g/day for 3 days, was administered. Three consecutive urinalyses showed a pH of 9, crystals of struvite, hema-turia, and 10 5 leukocytes/mL. Gram-positive rods with rounded ends and nonparallel sides, arranged in palisades or in V shapes, were observed, which suggested the presence of corynebacteria. Urine cultures were positive and yielded a pure culture of 10 5 CFU/mL of Corynebacterium spp. The isolated strain showed slight growth after 24 or 48 h of incubation on horse blood agar medium but abundant growth on the same medium containing 1% Tween 80 under aero-bic conditions (5% CO 2). Colonies were white, opaque, smooth, convex, and nonhemolytic. This lipid-requiring strain was catalase positive and strongly urease positive. Testing with the API-Coryne strip (bioMérieux, Marcy l'Etoile, France) showed that the strain was nitrate-reduction positive and produced acid from glucose, ribose, sucrose, and maltose. However, this strain, which was designated CCH052683, did not hydrolyze gelatin or esculin. It was identified as Corynebacterium group F1 (the corresponding numeric profile of the gallery API-Coryne was 3001325). The strain was correctly identified to the species level as Corynebac-terium pseudogenitalium by using polymerase chain reaction and sequencing 16 rRNA as previously described (1,2). Comparison of 785 nucleotides (546–1,331) gave a 16S rDNA similarity value of 99.9% between the sequences of the isolated strain and C. pseudogenitalium ATCC 33039/NCTC11860 (European Molecular Biology Laboratory accession no. X81872). norfloxacin and resistant to erythro-mycin, lincomycin, and nitrofuran-toin. Ceftriaxone was replaced by nor-floxacin (400 mg twice a day) for 1 month. The patient improved and remained healthy 6 months after therapy. Nondiphtheric corynebacteria are of increasing importance. They have been observed in human specimens, and many new taxa of coryneform bacteria have been described (3). Interest in their taxonomy is increasing , and molecular, phenotypic, and biochemical analyses have resulted in the reclassification of this genus (3). C. pseudogenitalium was described in 1979 by Furness et al. (4) …