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Bordetella Holmesii-Like Organisms Associated With Septicemia, Endocarditis, And Respiratory Failure, Perry J. Severance, Yi-Wei Tang, Marlene K. Hopkins, Christopher P. Kolbert, Paul A. Hartley, David H. Persing

Articles

We recovered an unusual bacterial strain from blood or sputum of three patients with septicemia, endocarditis, and/or respiratory failure. The three isolates were thin, curved, gram-negative, light brown, pigment-producing bacilli with variable catalase activity. They were asaccharolytic, oxidasenegative, nonmotile, and fastidious. Identification was not possible on the basis of these characteristics alone or in combination with cellular fatty acid profiles. Nucleic acid amplification and sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA gene revealed that all three isolates were identical and most closely related to the emerging pathogen Bordetella holmesii, diverging from the published sequence at three nucleotide positions (99.8% similarity). …