Gluconobacter as Well as Asaia Species, Newly Emerging Opportunistic Human Pathogens among Acetic Acid Bacteria

Abstract

Acetic acid bacteria (AAB) are broadly used in industrial food processing. Among them, members of the genera Asaia, Acetobacter, and Granulibacter were recently reported to be human opportunistic pathogens. We isolated AAB from clinical samples from three patients and describe here the clinical and bacteriological features of these cases. We report for the first time (i) the isolation of a Gluconobacter sp. from human clinical samples; (ii) the successive isolation of different AAB, i.e., an Asaia sp. and two unrelated Gluconobacter spp., from a cystic fibrosis patient; and (iii) persistent colonization of the respiratory tract by a Gluconobacter sp. in this patient. We reviewed the main clinical features associated with AAB isolation identified in the 10 documented reports currently available in the literature. Albeit rare, infections as well as colonization with AAB are increasingly reported in patients with underlying chronic diseases and/or indwelling devices. Clinicians as well as medical microbiologists should be aware of these unusual opportunistic pathogens, which are difficult to detect during standard medical microbiological investigations and which are multiresistant to antimicrobial agents. Molecular methods are required for identification of genera of AAB, but the results may remain inconclusive for identification to the species level.