Corynebacterium ramonii sp. nov., a novel toxigenic member of the Corynebacterium diphtheriae species complex

Chiara Crestani; Gabriele Arcari; Annie Landier; Virginie Passet; Dorian Garnier; Sylvie Brémont; Nathalie Armatys; Annick Carmi-Leroy; Julie Toubiana; Edgar Badell; Sylvain Brisse

doi:10.1016/j.resmic.2023.104113

Corynebacterium ramonii sp. nov., a novel toxigenic member of the Corynebacterium diphtheriae species complex

Res Microbiol. 2023 Sep-Oct;174(7):104113. doi: 10.1016/j.resmic.2023.104113. Epub 2023 Aug 10.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Paris, France. Electronic address: chiara.crestani@pasteur.fr.
² Department of Molecular Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
³ Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Paris, France.
⁴ Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Paris, France; Institut Pasteur, French National Reference Center for Corynebacteria of the Diphtheriae Complex, Paris, France.
⁵ Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Paris, France; Institut Pasteur, French National Reference Center for Corynebacteria of the Diphtheriae Complex, Paris, France; Necker-Enfants Malades University Hospital, Paris, France.
⁶ Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Biodiversity and Epidemiology of Bacterial Pathogens, Paris, France; Institut Pasteur, French National Reference Center for Corynebacteria of the Diphtheriae Complex, Paris, France. Electronic address: sylvain.brisse@pasteur.fr.

PMID: 37572824
DOI: 10.1016/j.resmic.2023.104113

Abstract

The Corynebacterium diphtheriae species complex comprises seven bacterial species, including Corynebacterium ulcerans, a zoonotic pathogen from multiple animal species. In this work, we characterise phenotypically and genotypically isolates belonging to two C. ulcerans lineages. Results from phylogenetic analyses, in silico DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH) and MALDI-TOF spectra differentiate lineage 2 from C. ulcerans lineage 1, which, together with their distinct transmission dynamics (probable human-to-human vs animal-to-human), indicates that lineage 2 is a separate Corynebacterium species, which we propose to name Corynebacterium ramonii. This species is of particular medical interest considering that its human-to-human transmission is likely, and that some C. ramonii isolates carry the diphtheria toxin gene.

Keywords: Corynebacterium diphtheriae species complex; Corynebacterium ramonii; Corynebacterium ulcerans; Genome sequencing; Taxonomy.