Kosakonia radicincitans with hypervirulent lON genes causes human bloodstream infections

Abstract

Kosakonia radicincitans is a species within the new genus Kosakonia, which is typically a plant pathogen, with rare reports of human infection. The number of human infections may be underestimated because this new genus is under-represented among diagnostic tools. This report describes a case of bloodstream infection caused by K. radicincitans. The pathogen was identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-TOF mass spectrometry and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The hypervirulent human pathogenicity gene LON, which has not been described before, was detected in the bacterial genome by gene annotation. Thus, this discovery provides a new reference for studying the pathogenic mechanism of this rare pathogen.