Journal of Laboratory Medicine and Quality Assurance  2004;26(2):239-242

A Case of Klebsiella pneumoniae Unidentified by Conventional Biochemical Tests.

Young Chul KIM 1 ; Jae Seok KIM ; Ji Young PARK ; Han Sung KIM ; Wonkeun SONG ; Sung Ha KANG ; Hyoun Chan CHO ; Kyu Man LEE

Affiliations

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Keywords

Klebsiella pneumoniae; Klebsiella terrigena; 16S rRNA gene sequencing

Country

Republic of Korea

Language

Korean

Abstract

A sixty-seven-year-old man was admitted to a hospital with symptoms of high fever and chill. Bacterial isolates were obtained from sputum and blood. These isolates were identified as Klebsiella terrigena by API 20E (BioMerieux, Marcy-l'Etoile, France). K. terrigena is very rarely isolated from humans and no case of K. terrigena bacteremia has been reported yet. We analyzed partial 16S rRNA gene sequences of these isolates. The 16S rRNA gene sequences were matched with that of Klebsiella pneumoniae (ATCC 13886). 16S rRNA gene sequencing has been recently introduced in clinical laboratories for unidentified organisms by conventional biochemical tests. For the precise identification of bacteria rarely causing clinical infection, it might be considered to use genotypic methods, such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing.