The genus Nocardia includes more than 80 known species, with at least 33 of them related to human pathology [2,3]. It is an opportunistic pathogen, causing infection generally in immunosuppressed, mainly with long exposure to corticosteroids, transplanted or HIV positive patients. It has worldwide distribution and is very ubiquitous, being found in terrestrial and aquatic environments as well a...

Human nocardiosis, caused by Nocardia spp., an ubiquitous soil-borne bacteria, is a rare granulomatous disease close related to immune dysfunctions. Clinically can occur as an acute life-threatening disease, with lung, brain and skin being commonly affected. The infection was classically diagnosed in HIV infected persons, organ transplanted recipients and long term corticosteroid treated patien...

Although 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis is employed most often for the definitive identification of Nocardia species, alternate molecular methods and polymorphisms in other gene targets have also enabled species determinations. We evaluated a combined Nocardia PCR-based reverse line blot (RLB) hybridization assay based on 16S and 16S-23S rRNA gene spacer region polymorphisms to identify 12 Ame...

A novel actinomycete, strain 04-5195(T), that produces amicoumacin B, which targets bone morphogenetic protein-2, was isolated from a soil sample collected in Jinan, Shandong Province, China. Strain 04-5195(T) had morphological, biochemical, physiological and chemotaxonomic properties that were consistent with its classification in the genus Nocardia and it formed a phyletic line in the Nocardi...

Nocardia species are gram-positive environmental saprophytes, but some cause the infectious disease nocardiosis. The complete genomic sequence of Nocardia farcinica IFM 10152 has been determined, and analyses indicated the presence of two different RNA polymerase beta subunit genes, rpoB and rpoB2, in the genome (J. Ishikawa, A. Yamashita, Y. Mikami, Y. Hoshino, H. Kurita, K. Hotta, T. Shiba, a...

Disseminated nocardiosis is a well-described infection occurring in immunosuppressed individuals. Of the several species of Nocardia, Nocardia farcinica is being increasingly recognized as a pathogen capable of causing severe systemic disease. Described here is a case of disseminated nocardiosis with involvement of the brain, eyes, lymph nodes, and lung with biopsy-proven N. farcinica, with a d...

Psoas muscle abscess is an uncommon infection that have been diagnosed increasingly in the last years. We present a case of a patient with advanced human immunodeficiency virus infection who developed a disseminated infection due to Nocardia asteroides sensu stricto type VI with psoas abscess. To our knowledge no other cases of Nocardia psoas abscess in the setting of HIV infection have been re...

pulmonary nocardiosis is an acute or suppurative chronic disease, caused by aerobic actinomycetes which usually originates from soil and compost. since nocardia species have been isolated from the soil of different regions of iran, as well as different cases of nocardiosis, this study was undertaken to evaluate the role and frequency of nocardia in pulmonary infections.the present investigation...

The taxonomic status of a soil isolate, provisionally assigned to the genus Nocardia, was established following a polyphasic study. An almost complete sequence of the 16S rDNA of the strain was determined and aligned with available sequences for nocardiae and phylogenetic trees were inferred using four tree-making algorithms. The organism was associated consistently with the type strains of Noc...

Although Nocardiosis has considerable recurrence and mortality rates, characteristics and risk factors of Nocardia infection have not been assessed in patients with rheumatic diseases. Here, we examined the characteristics and risk factors of Nocardia infection in rheumatic disease patients in our hospital. Ten rheumatic disease patients who developed Nocardia infection were identified by retro...